First I use this:

Then Photoshop and Illustrator, but always pencil, brush, pen and ink first.
Master a Windsor-Newton #3, and you master the world!

https://www.facebook.com/coffindagger
http://coffindaggers.com/
http://thecoffindaggers.bandcamp.com

I can't draw to save my life, but I can use software to achieve what I want. Photoshop is pretty much the image editing software of choice, but it can be very time consuming to get it to do what you want.

For posters and stuff I use QuarkExpress and I recommend it if you can get it. It's useful for fanzines too. Very quick and easy to pick up, and I find graphics are much quicker and effective than Photoshop, which can get a bit of headache.

Once you have got your head around using 'layers' to build up your image, you can do quite a lot quite quickly.

Once upon a time you just played guitar in a band. Now I find you have to make websites, posters, CD artwork, sticker artwork, update YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, distribute emails and somehow find time to play guitar..... Ho hum.

http://thewaterboarders.bandcamp.com/

I've been using Photoshop for about a decade, getting into photography because I'm incapable of drawing anything other than breath and curtains.

I've recently been trying to learn to use Illustrator to bring in more graphic work, but so far all I can make is unrecognisable wibbly shapes.

Nice Monstro. Very punk rock.

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This is my first GIMP project. Artwork for demo e.p. of leftover tunes, but it was fun to put together a complete package and finally be able to learn this program. Culled from the macabre section of my foto library. Turned into some kind of Giallo/gothic romance paperback novel/horror comic cover. Not very surfy, but it's all no-budget with no overhead, so it will probably just end up as a Bandcamp free download.

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Let me start with a self referee'd foul

norcalhodad wrote:

This is my first GIMP project. Artwork for demo e.p. of leftover tunes, but it was fun to put together a complete package and finally be able to learn this program. Culled from the macabre section of my foto library. Turned into some kind of Giallo/gothic romance paperback novel/horror comic cover. Not very surfy, but it's all no-budget with no overhead, so it will probably just end up as a Bandcamp free download.

Hella Yeah! I stumbled on this stuff after checking out that Aaron & the Burrs stuff, then crawling the Surf tag in bandcamp.

Joe, you gotta do a better job of shameless self promotion!

I can appreciate that you've moved on from that Close Outs sound, but man - that California Demo Sessions stuff is really good.

Of course the Vader stuff is gnarly evil great in its own right.

http://hellavader.bandcamp.com/

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Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

Last edited: Apr 06, 2013 08:32:05

I do my pencilling (usually) on paper and my inking in Manga studio. Some texturing in photoshop, which is also where I do most of my painting.
I also have been working directly in Manga studio on a lot of projects.

Psycho surfabilly!

www.thealderkings.com

Great work!

I guess, If you want to draw in PS, it's impossible to use mouse, you need a wacom stuff, or stg.

psychonaut wrote:

This is one of my more sucessful ones. It's my tribute to the great Wallace Wood.
It's done with pencil, brush and ink on Bristol board, and yes that's real zip-a-tone. We used this for the cover of our Out of Limits 7".
Programs like Gimp and Photoshop are great for manipulating the image afterwards, but drawing with a mouse is a bit like trying to draw with a potato, so I stick to pecil, ink and paper initially. I suggest that more people should try and draw with a brush, it's very difficult to master, but the results are woth the effort.
I should really draw more...

original compositions (low-level demo stuff /out of tune, etc) myStuff not my best, but i don't like to be in a musician community without anything to show

Lots of good advice already here. To kind of sum up things, background images are probably best produced by hand or photo and scanned in. To manipulate those, go with Photoshop (high end) or GIMP. I find GIMP a bit of a pain in terms of commands, etc., because I was used to Photoshop, so it may not be the most user friendly, but the price is right. Adding graphic elements like text and shapes can be done in those programs, but the vector-based programs like Illustrator and Inkscape give you better control over that - you just have to import your raster images as a layer.

That being said, a quick and easy way to do things like posters is Powerpoint. It's optimized for projected presentations, but you can set up a single slide as a high resolution file for printing, and it is super easy to insert graphics and text.