Drawing with Painter

The last couple of posts I was trying to PAINT with a DRAWING implement.
Now here I am trying to DRAW with a PAINTing program.

What can I say.

I'm determined to 'go digital' if it kills me (but hoping it doesn't). At least for some of my children's book work. It just makes sense.

I did this drawing, at first thinking I would render it up with watercolors, or maybe colored pencils, or maybe my new BFF art supplies, the water soluble pencils. Then I thought "hey, let's give Painter a try again - its been a while."

So I opened up my original drawing and started to make a digital 'final' drawing over it on a new layer. But it wasn't that easy. I had to find a medium that mimicked my drawing style. Which actually, I couldn't. I tried everything: conte crayons, colored pencils, regular pencils, brushes, ink, watercolor, regular pencil, etc. etc., in different widths and every variation there is. Almost. What I really want is something that can do a thick and thin line, like the plain brush tool in Photoshop can. I love that. But can't seem to find the equivalent in Painter. (If you know of something, please tell me.)

I finally settled on a plain colored pencil. It sort of does thick and thin (which varies according to how much pressure you use when you draw), but also goes lighter and darker which kind of bugs me. But I tried to make it work.

The other thing I haven't figured out yet is an equivalent to Photoshop's "line tool". I would love to pull a straight line for the skate blades, for example. I don't want to do all super perfect straight lines like in Illustrator. I want to keep the 'drawing' feel. But sometimes you do need a straight edge. (I actually almost put a straight edge on my Wacom to keep my hand straight at one point. How silly is that.)

So now I have to decide how to paint this puppy. I think I will keep this one version as just a line drawing. Then I'll do a new one with some digital watercolor. There's another whole can 'o worms, the watercolor options. Oy.