2D Tips and Tricks Needed

Hey everybody.

So recently I've been trying to do some 2D drawing and sketching on my bamboo tablet. However, whenever I try drawing something it looks almost like I drew it with a mouse in Microsoft Paint (currently using gimp), in that the edges seem rough and that it looks a bit pixelated and looks bad in general. So I was hoping those of you who are more experienced than me could have some tips and tricks, such as programs to use, canvas size/resolution, brushes etc. Generally I try going for cartoony styles in the sense that there's outlines to objects and there's only basic shading.
I was going to post an image of a koala character I made earlier this week to give an idea of what these ended up looking like, but Gimp force closed before I could save. I'll try posting something when I have time time to make something. 

You may have already tried but I'd bump up the dpi and go for a bit larger canvas. I remember wrestling with Gimp on that, but it's been long enough that I've forgotten specifics. 300 dpi stands out in my mind though.

As Troy mentioned, make sure your res is high enough. I personally have a template size of 1920x1080 for my doodles. Another thing that broke the look and feel of drawing when I tried GIMP was the fact that I couldn't get pressure sensitivity to work.
I'm not 100% on how brushes work in GIMP, but make sure settings like spacing (frequency) are low enough to lay a smooth stroke.

Thanks guys. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend or early next week to try this out. Since images like my profile image was hand drawn on paper, scanned, and then traced in Gimp using a path tool; and it'd be great to simplify that process down.

Hey Scott, I recommend using the brush tool and not the pencil tool. The brush tool will fade the edges whereas the pencil tool makes the edges very sharp. The default circle brushes have a few different versions to give you the softness you prefer--I usually use the "Hardness 100 (51x51)" or the "Hardness 075 (51x51)" brushes, since the others are a bit too soft.

Since you are using paths, I assume you are using the "stroke path" option, and that works really well too for when you want very clean and accurate curves.

Just to add a bit to what everyone else said, I'd recommend setting your document at 1280x720 or higher, and 72 dpi (300/150 dpi resolution is recommended when you plan on printing a high quality copy of your work, but for screen, or web use, 72 dpi is good enough and doesn't consume all your resources)

And as Daniel said: In photoshop, you can adjust the 'spacing' of the brush, which is on 25% by default and usually looks kind of lumpy when painting, so I drop it to 1%.
I haven't used GIMP in ages but I think there should be something similar in it (:

Hey Scott, were you able to get the sort of results you were looking for? I can rig up some quick vid-grabs or screenshots of how I have my GIMP setup to get various looks, like sponge-painting, 2B pencil, ect without using crazy brush imports.

BnBGobo99 wrote:Hey Scott, were you able to get the sort of results you were looking for?  I can rig up some quick vid-grabs or screenshots of how I have my GIMP setup to get various looks, like sponge-painting, 2B pencil, ect without using crazy brush imports.

Hey Mike, that'd be great if it's not too much hassle. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to mess around with GIMP or anything since most of my time has been jammed pack with school work. (currently finals week and my last final is on the 20th). And next semester doesn't look too nice with my major senior design class and a lab class that apparently eats up most students' time. Hopefully though I'll be able to find some time at some point.