Software Review: DrawScribe
I use Adobe's Illustrator for my lineart and flats. Recently I purchased Astute Graphics's DrawScribe plugin for Illustrator. It allows you to work faster when drawing in Illustrator, bottom line.
DrawScribe has a lot of customization to it, so you can change the settings to whatever you prefer. The tools that come with DrawScribe are the Dynamic Sketch and InkScribe. Here is an introductory movie about this plugin, created by Astute Graphics:
As you can see from the above clip, you can use it fine with either a tablet or mouse. Here's a breakdown of the features:
Dynamic Sketch: With this tool, you gain access to repeat sketching (explanation later), continue already drawn paths, intelligent path joining, and gesture trimming.
Repeat Sketching: Let's say you want to draw a circle. You draw it once and it comes out lop-sided. Well, with this setting turned on, you can draw it over, and Dynamic Sketch will automatically remove the previous attempt and draw your new sketch while remembering the path of the old circle to give you something halfway between the old and new sketch. Each time you redraw, the tool becomes smarter and smarter about what you want. Some people can only draw perfect circles after making that motion several times around. If so, this is a great feature for you. (Of course, it is not just for circles. Same thing for lines you just can't get right on the first attempt, etc).
Continuous Path Editing: With this feature turned on, if you draw a line and then begin another line very close to it, the tool will automatically know to connect the two points closest to one another, so that the two lines become one. No more selecting two points manually and clicking the "Join" option.
Intelligent Path Joining: Here is what happens in Illustrator when I normally draw two intersecting paths with the paintbrush tool:
But when I have the DrawScribe plugin, I can do this:
See how it automatically removed the excessive paths? Yeah. That's a huge time saver. However, you need to be careful...sometimes this is not what you want; sometimes you WANT the paths to cross, depending on your goal when drawing. So you need to toggle that feature on and off as needed.
Gesture Trimming: This is actually the most useful feature for me. With a "W" motion across a path, you can delete an area of the lineart that you want. Here's an example of why I love this feature. I drew a torso and want to now add arms to the torso:
So here's the torso with the arm:
Normally, that extra line between the two arm lines is an issue. I have to break the torso's continuous line and erase it. With gesture trimming, all I need to do is make a "W" motion over that line, like so:
Which gives me this:
All without ever having to switch tools or use anything but the tablet's pen. That right there will improve my efficiency tremendously.
InkScribe: This is meant to be a replacement for the pen tool. InkScribe is great when you are tracing something, I've found. You can easily curve straight lines without adding extra points. Again, instead of constantly clicking between the different pen tool options, you can change what you need with one tool. However, because I am mainly a sketcher, I am more interested in Dynamic Sketch of the two.
The Downside: The price of the plugin can be a little high for some. If you're an American, that British-pound-to-American-dollar conversion will hurt. The total (as of this writing) is about 80 dollars. I was hoping that they would have a possible small holiday sale, but that did not happen...I don't typically purchase plugins for something over 50 or 60, but decided to take the plunge.
So, overall, if you have the money, I hope I have demonstrated the ways in which DrawScribe can aid your digital drawing. Next I hope to review their other plugins (WidthScribe, SubScribe, VectorScribe, and Phantasm CS).
(Full disclaimer: this post is not a paid-for advertisement)
