Hand drawing process and computer integration

Let's see a little more about my process for crafting hand drawn graphics. 

I'll start by pointing out that I make very small drawings, as you can see below. Not that it's necessarily a good thing, it's just an old habit. It has the advantage of forcing me to reduce details and keeping things easy to read at small size. However, when it comes to animating, having less space means having less control.

The drawing process again (check my previous post to learn more). :

Step 1 : Sketching with 5H and HB pencils

Step 2 : Inking with Faber-Castell PITT Artists pens

Step 3 : I scan the inked artwork and print it back on a heavier (60 lb) paper that will support the watercolours.

Step 4 : Applying colors with watercolour pencils and wax pastels

At this point, I work on the computer to make the final adjustments. When scanning, I use the "Black and White" setting on my scanner so that I get only pure blacks (as opposed to a wide range of grays if I used the "grayscale" setting). Below is a close-up of the scanning result.

This is very important because it allows me to quickly remove all white pixels by simly using the magic wand tool in photoshop. I can isolate the lineart with very few manipulations.

Still in Photoshop, I can then move the lineart over the colored piece in order to get a nice deep black for the final piece. As you can see below, the lineart on the colored piece is sometimes dimmed by while brushing the colors with water so putting back the pure black lineart over it is very effective.

If I have any scaling or rotating to do in Photoshop to make the lineart fit over the colored piece, I make sure to do it on the colored piece and NOT on the lineart. Scaling and rotating the pure black lineart would create antialiasing which would integrate a range of different grays. At this point I want to keep the black and white aspect because I'll use the magic wand again to remove the space around the colored piece (use magic wand with "contiguous" setting around the lineart, select the colored piece layer, delete the selection).

I end up with perfectly clean artworks that are easy to integrate into my game!