The Right Tool For the Job ... Not! :P

[the_gneech]

While it's a truism that having expensive art materials can't make you a good artist, it's also true that having cruddy materials can certainly make you a bad one. Case in point, I haven't been able to find any of my bristol of choice lately ... there's just a big, empty slot at the art store where it normally sits.

So instead, I have to use an inferior type ... and I hate, hate, HATE it! It gets grooves from the pencil point, making erasing largely a pointless endeavor, and there's so much "tooth" in the paper that ink just goes GLOOOORRRRP into a big, fuzzy blur of a line. And this is supposedly 2-ply smooth bristol!

The weird thing about it is, that both types are made by the same company; they are both Strathmore 100 lb. smooth bristol. But the good stuff has a brown cover, and the crud has a yellow cover; in terms of marketing, that's the only difference that I can see.

Oh well. The net result of all this is that it took me all day to do SJ for the rest of the week, because I had to clean up the mess caused by the cruddy bristol. So here's a piece of free advice to all would-be cartoonists out there: GET GOOD PAPER! DON'T USE THE CHEAP CRAP!

Catcha later. :)

-The Gneech

Comments

[jamesbarrett.livejournal.com]

So that's where you've been! I was wondering. -Frisk

[trpeal.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think this is the bristol that I use. Yellow cover, with a picture of wooden blocks on it? I've never had any problems with it, but then I went to this stuff from regular paper, so I don't have much to judge by. And I draw big fat lines, so maybe the "toothiness" doesn't affect me as much that way.

Matt

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Sounds very like it. However, different batches vary widely in quality; it may just be that I always just end up with the crud. -TG

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Ha! When you find the Bristol, draw a chicken on the paper. Would YOU fight it? ;)