• I was told that my art is half-assed mediocrity. I'm so frustrated about this, I nearly want to quit. I want to be good enough so that no one will every say this to me again. What should I do?...
  
  
• What books do you recommend for aspiring illustrators and what books have worked well for you personally?
  
  
• What strategies/ learning tools / tips / whatever do you recommend for practicing illustration?
  
  
• I find almost all image programs daunting and I've no idea where to start. Tutorials may help, but I haven't found any on how to get started working with these programs in general.
  
  
• What are some artist you admire / are looking at right now?
  
  
• What do you recommend for people who have trouble with the basic problem of sitting down to practice?
  
  
• What courses / schooling do you recommend to prepare for a career in illustration?
  
  
• What products do you suggest for presenting your work?
  
  
• What materials do you use?
  
  
• How do you get rid of the sketchiness to your paintings from your scanned lines?
  
  

Ask Merekat^TM:

I get a lot of emails from people who are searching for answers not only about the industry but about improving themselves as an artist. One thing I realized was that a good majority of the questions I've asked myself in the past are still the more frequent questions it seems just about every artist encounters.

So I thought it might be helpful to you guys to share the experiences and let you know that you're not alone. This happens to everyone. And if nothing else, knowing that, it shows that there are paths past the issues. You can indeed get better if you try hard enough. ;}

So to the left are frequently asked questions. Click on a question and it'll link you down to the answer. I'll add more as I get them. Hope this helps!

"I was told that my art is half-assed mediocrity. I'm so frustrated about this, I nearly want to quit. I want to be good enough so that no one will every say this to me again. What should I do?..."

A few years ago, I was really into comics and wanted nothing more than to be a comic book artist. So I read all the sites, prepared the sample art pages, put together a portfolio including some of my paintings (like Jhenna, Arkaynne and Flikk...) and even made personal business cards. I went to the biggest conventions, stood in all the lines for portfolio review like I had done the year previous and tried to schmooze the editors while they looked at my stuff. They had issues with the panel pages, but they went apeshit over my painted works. But this didn't phase me because this is what happened the year before. And the time before that. And the time before that.

So I had another 'great interview' and went home hopeful, but not too hopeful. At least this time I got a couple of business cards and some big smiles, but again got the 'we'll call you' line (meaning, 'don't call us...'), which usually means they don't know what to do with you. That's okay, it happens. After all, at least I was pretty good to make a living out of my art otherwise, right? Actually, I really wanted to just be a cover artist, not do the panel pages. And for covers, I thought I had it down pat. I mean, it's what I do.

So imagine my surprise when I receive a letter from some head editor in one of the biggest comic companies that told me, in summary:

1) you have significant anatomy problems with your work. Try this this and this book...
2) your perspective is horrible
3) your layouts are boring at best
4) if you want to spend the hundreds and thousands of hours it will take to upgrade your work to a level we will find remotely standard, come back to us. But in the meanwhile...
5) stop sending us your crap work.

Wow. So what do you do when a head editor of a major comic company sends you a message like that? Do you scream in pain and break your art pencils? Do you set fire to your portfolio and swear off art forever? Do you break down and give up because this head honcho in charge said you're crap? Know what I did?

I laughed.

Laughed damn hard actually. Then showed all my friends. And I still have that letter to this day, and will be framing it in my future office for proud display of my most prominent critic.

Point being, people will say things to you. Important people. You're never going to stop it because there is no artist out there in existence that doesn't have a critic. You cannot simply break down every time someone makes a remark about your work. You can't give up because they aren't happy with what you are doing. They don't have to be happy, especially if this was a friend of yours. And if it was a friend of yours, I am quite sure they don't have the background and expertise to properly critique anything you have. Though there is something to be said for the uneducated opinion... it does have its uses, but more on that at another time.

Okay, so you're worried about being mediocre, eh? Join the club. I fret on that and have been since I could hold a crayon. The point of art is to express yourself to another, even if the other is yourself. Yes, there will be times you need to please a boss if you make art a bread-winning career. Yes, you will be critiqued on an hourly basis. But you can't let them destroy you every time you hear a negative opinion.

Usually a trend will occur:

1) you get critiqued by some jack-derriere know-it-all that doesn't know paper from Adam and he'll give you the most spiteful pained opinions that will rip up your art to its foundations. For this one, don't worry about him. He doesn't do this for a living and is not in control of those who do. Even if you want to do the whole 'consumer/customer is always right' schtick, they don't know what they're talking about, they don't know what they want (even if they are adamant about it) and they certainly don't know how to make YOU more successful. Simply take their critique gracefully and politely —never burn bridges, you don't know who this person knows— but don't take their advice to heart.

2) you get the boss/client that IS in charge of what you do for the art and they don't like what you're doing. Well, it happens. When you get up to a certain level of experience you'll be able to voice your objections back —professionally and nicely— and hold more of your ground, but for now, well, they write the paycheck. Suck it up and do what they want unless you can state your case well enough to change their mind; but at the beginning, they don't think YOU know crap about crap either and certainly don't know enough to tell them about THEIR business, so it's probable you won't win the argument. :} Sometimes you just have to give them what they want and get your paycheck. This does not mean you are a horrible sell-out artist and those who would tell you otherwise that has never had to pay the rent off of an art job and even if they have, they're too scared to admit they've done worse and 'sold out' years ago and have no self-respect. You talk to any established artist and they will tell you the long list of crap work they had to fart out to get to the point where they could do what they wanted to do and call the shots. It's all a part of the cycle. Just remember if the job is really not what you want, there's no shame in transferring to another one. You don't have to stay in a bad place just to 'pay your dues.' If you have opportunity for something better, go after it.

3) you get the critique from an actual artist/boss in the industry who does know what the hell they're talking about. These are precious precious critiques and you need to learn from them. But just because you get a bad critique from one of these people, doesn't mean you have to hang up your tablet. These are LESSONS. They are taking time out of their busy schedules to critique you to MAKE YOU BETTER. Now, sometimes their critiques have a couple flaws. 1) they are critiquing to their personal tastes, which may be nice, n'all, but doesn't necessarily help you out in your career path. and 2) they can seem overwhelming and you figure if they pointed out so many horrible things about your work that there is nothing to salvage.

Wrong. Take their critique like a new diet recommendation. You are told you need more iron and vitamins in your diet because you don't have enough vegetables or whatnot. And it's making you anemic and you are having visible troubles in suchandsuch area of your life. This doesn't mean everything you eat is crap. It doesn't mean you have no chance to fix anything and you should just stop eating rather than eating badly. And this certainly doesn't mean you have to completely change the way you eat to a hugely new diet that you don't know how to manage and don't have a clue about enduring.

This means you order some broccoli instead of having the fries with that steak.

So take the critique. Analyze it. Pick the parts you may agree with but didn't know precisely until they pointed it out. Then pick one or two minor things you can do to improve your work. Then when you get those down, start working on gradually working on a major thing you can improve (like anatomy or shading or composition). Study. Work hard. Just like a diet, you won't see results right away. You need to keep at it. You didn't gain all the weight overnight and you certainly won't lose it overnight. So you have to give it time. You have to have patience with yourself. Keep your old drawings for examples. Throw away nothing. One day, you'll look at your work and see some improvement. Then you'll see more. Then you'll be at a place you didn’t think you could be. And then you'll look forward and know you will always have things to learn.

But that's okay. Wasn't it Michelangelo who, at 88, uttered: "I am still learning"? It takes time. But it's not the end result, it's the process. Just improve where you can. You always will be improving. And you'll always be working. So don't freak out about the mediocrity comment even if you feel it may be true. Who are you racing against? Just yourself. Not the other artists, because they're doing something else in another direction than you. You are just in charge of improving yourself as well as you can. So if you feel you might be mediocre, then do something about it. Train. Study. Work harder. It's your work, after all. Not theirs.

So okay. I can't help your hand skills. I can't help your career and I can't give you talent you don’t have. But through this site I can give you my personal advice and some potentially useful directional opinions as straight as I can. It's up to you what you do with the information. But remember, I'm just another artist.

And art, if nothing else, is subjective.

Keep your chin up,
Merekat

"What books do you recommend for aspiring illustrators and what books have worked well for you personally?"

Books I do recommend are mostly reference books and favorite artists. Favorite artists vary with my mood, though there are standards (read later in the FAQ). But as for reference books, these are my choice selections:

Anatomy
The Human Figure: An Anatomy for Artists by David K. Rubins

The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing: A Contemporary Perspective on the Classical Tradition by Anthony Ryder

Design
Design & Composition Secrets of Professional Artists: 16 Successful Painters Show How They Create Prize-Winning Work by International Artist

Perspective
Basic Perspective Drawing: A Visual Approach by John Montague

Another excellent reference book, a bit more on the technical approach, but will do some of the more advanced ideals of perspective like boat hulls and such.

Basic Perspectives for Artists: A Guide to the Creative Use of Perspective in Drawing, Painting, and Design by Keith West

An excellent perspective book, easy to read, easy to follow, easy to use. My favorite.

Pose Reference
Pose File: Theatrical Pose (vol 2)
Pose File: Sports Action (Pose File, Vol 5)
Pose File: Light and Shadow (vol 7)
Pose File: Vertical Perspective (aka "Above and Below") (vol 8)
by Elte Shuppan

They’re hard to find. Most are out of print, but it is obtainable. Don’t worry about the combat pose or the supersize ones: those are a different series. You’re looking for the Japanese nude photography, the models shot from different angles in varied poses and such. Don’t worry, it’s clean. It’s just the best photo reference I’ve ever come across. There are many in the series, these are just my four faves.

Breaking Bounds: The Dance Photography of Lois Greenfield

Airborne: The New Dance Photography of Lois Greenfield

Tutu by Greg Barrett

Always, always, always study everything you can, particularly life drawing, references. Art brainwashes you in a way. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you can’t look at anything without thinking about how to paint or construct it. Learn how materials react to the environment, such as light streaming through glass or water. Different materials will create different effects, such as the ripple of water vs a glass block wall. Knowing what a material consists of will help you bring it to life with practice. For example, if you have a highly polished wood with a lacquer coating, the topcoat will bounce the light and add the properties to the wood underneath. In such a case, to just paint the wood would result in a lesser finish. Sure, this doesn’t explain how to paint such a finish, but the point is in learning about your environment, you’ll start to perceive the clues that will aid you in creating richer and livelier creations, regardless of the style.

Ask questions. Find out the differences. In knowing the questions to ask and the answers they give, you’ll realize what it is about your piece that doesn’t quite render realistically. One of the biggest problems I hear from artists is the issue: I know something’s not quite right, but what? Once you start analyzing your scene and what you wish to accomplish with that scene, you’ll be able to pinpoint more closely exactly what is the missing facet.

I primarily work in Photoshop, so I’m not familiar with other programs and their tutorials, but I can say with certain that Adobe has the best tutorial books I’ve ever studied. They have a series called “Classroom in a Book” for every program they publish. It leads the artist through step by step most of the more useful tools to get you at a working level with the software. They say most of the lessons take 45 minutes or so; you’ll be able to set it down and pick back up relatively easy without investing large chunks of time. At the end, you’ll be able to if not absolutely have memorized particular processes, but at least know where to look when you need a function. From there, it’s up to you how you put the tools together. The art of using a program isn’t so much knowing all the tools, but knowing the best tools for the job. And that can change dramatically from painting to painting, so don’t expect that one way you learn a technique will be the only or the best way to do that technique. It’s up to you to get a communication with the software. It’s meant to be a tool like any regular paintbrush, nothing more, nothing less.

Well… a paintbrush with an undo key.

I appreciate the great masters, some of whom are alive, but most of them are long gone. Four of the long list of jaw-droppers include:

Jan Van Eyck (Dutch. 1385–1441) : “So outstanding was his skill as an oil painter that the invention of the medium was at one time attributed to him, with his brother Hubert, also a painter. Van Eyck exploited the qualities of oil as never before, building up layers of transparent glazes, thus giving him a surface on which to capture objects in the minutest detail and allowing for the preservation of his colours. — archive.com.” I particularly love the reflective detail in the mirror bobbles in the Arnolfini Portrait (1434). In details so fine it would require a single-haired paintbrush, he recreated a reflection of the room in each mirror flange with utmost realistic detail. Why? Because he could.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch 1836–1912) : “His paintings are marked by clarity of color, exactness, and smooth finish; he imagined a Rome of splendor, sunlight, and gentle sentiment. Alma-Tadema inspired many followers and imitators, including Hollywood, which has consistently reproduced his vision of the ancient world on film. — getty.edu"

Andy Goldsworthy (Scottish 1956– ) : “Goldsworthy is an extraordinarily innovative British artist who employs a range of natural materials — leaves, bark, twigs, petals, berries, rock, clay, stones, feathers, snow, ice — to create outdoor sculpture that works instinctively in nature. His range of scale is impressive, from grasses and leaves to ice spires and slate stacks. — Library Journal.” Friggin mystical beauty-maker, this man. I am more inspired by his photography than I am by most painters. So innovative, so clever! And by golly, the patience! Go google his work. Actually, just pick up any of his books: google doesn’t do it justice, you have to see these collections up close and in full glossy color.

Mike Mignola (American 1962– ) : I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for comics, too ;} But Mike’s work is more than just my beloved Hellboy… His construction and finesse with negative space, repeating shapes and movement is impressive. Beyond his style, the use of value, color and weight creates striking imagery that works at any size. I particularly recommend The Art of Hellboy book. Much learning to be done, reading behind the inklines, from thumbnail to final.

Well, I’m in the same boat. It’s very difficult for me to sit down and paint for fun particularly because it’s now my job. I’m creating my book for the very reason to reclaim art as my hobby and not my 9 to 5. However, sometimes it takes making art a job to get anything done. Just like with most things, if you don’t have a deadline, then nothing gets accomplished. So schedule your practice time, as you would piano or that dental appointment. It’ll be hard at first, but if you regularly make time for your lessons, it’ll become more routine. And once it becomes commonplace, you won’t find it like pulling teeth to practice. Studies happen outside of school as well, and once you get past graduation, it’s up to you to continue them. So make a class time. Make some goals, make a schedule, a syllabus and get to work. ;}

"What courses / schooling do you recommend to prepare for a career in illustration?"

First of all, you really can't get too far in the long run without a good degree under your belt. A degree gets you that first job because they have nothing else to judge you on except for you showing you can complete a project and have the commitment to stay and earn your degree. After that, really, your jobs are your experience, so degrees matter little in the realm of art. It's your portfolio that counts. Some people might tell you that school did little to nothing for them, but I would like to say that for the record, it prepared me for the real world.

But, oddly enough, not in illustration.

I have never taken an anatomy course, nor a perspective course. My media introduction (pencils, inks, acrylics etc.) was brief. The focus of the philosophies wasn't the utilization of a particular medium as much as it was choosing the appropriate medium for the project. This lends itself more towards editoral, advertising and marketing applications, but I suppose the idea works just as well for any type of project. What college did teach me was how to learn and how to present myself. I learned how to mount boards of artwork for conferences and presentations with precision. I learned the proper specifications and knowledge for creating projects so that printing to presses went smoothly and correctly. I learned how to look at objects and see the subtleties of light interacting with the surface texture. I learned how to put my portfolio together so that my work and my words received instant attention. Sometimes what makes or breaks you in this industry isn't so much what you say but how you say it. And for that education, I feel my time in college was priceless. When I was hired by my company, the work load, the stress load and the speed at which I had to produce and present my work was so familliar to me, it was as if I were not an intern at all. For that? Yes. Go to college.

For courses? That really depends on what area of the illustration industry you are aiming for. For me, personally and technically, I took the graphic design and advertising route. My courses included a lot of design and layout study which I hated with a passion (I seem to have a mental block where it comes to typography. We aren't really on speaking terms.). As for illustration, here is what I recommend for various directions:

Advertising and graphic design: If you want to be an illustrator in this industry, it is imparative you have a handle on color, presentation, anatomy, printing specifications, advertising trends and competition, client information and more. This is the direction I was trained for and what I currently use today, with part of the web design field as well. I took many courses for graphic design that stressed cleanliness, readability, function and presentation. You MUST learn to be precise and clean about your work. Don't show up for a job with a crumpled old portfolio with sketches shoved in. As for materials, I'll be mentioning that below. As for useful courses, take anything that will help you with your design, anatomy, hand skills, presentation skills, professionalism, illustration abilities, editorial and advertising courses, marketing and fine arts are all good. Studio classes might help your painting, but probably will do little for your career in advertising. Learn all the programs you can. The more you know, the better off you are and the closer to the top of the list of candidates you'll be. One of the keys to making it here is information, and that includes researching your client, your client's market and everything else that might affect their projects.

3D and web design: I'm not really one to give expert advice where 3D is concerned. Most people assume that I have 3D skills by looking at my work, but what they see is really skills gained by anatomy, environment, and illustration study. However, for 3D works concerning textures, skins and other gaming specifications, I strongly suggest you take fine arts courses to learn about form, anatomy, color, lighting, perspective and thinking in a 3D world environment (spatial relations). Some sculpting classes would be fabulous too. Only after you learn the basics will you be able to more easily apply the ideas to your 3D programs. See, a lot of people assume the background to Jhenna is a 3D work and I simply colored over it. That knowledge is truly only drawn from knowing how perspectives, environments and lighting works in reality and convincing a 2D program like Photoshop to fool the eye. So take the fine arts. Learn to draw, learn to paint, learn how colors and light work. THEN take your programming courses. You'll be amazed how easily you can apply the traditional to the digital.

As for you web design people, the same information really applies. I take my fine arts background with layout and movement of the eye and couple it with my digital knowledge and experience with surfing the web myself. I've come across brilliant sites that inspire me to create something just as wonderful. I've come across horrible sites that more than adequately educated me on what NOT to do. So learn what you can, research everything, take programming courses to learn how better to design your sites to ease up the function of programming.

There are many means for presentation in this industry, but I find that two directions have been pretty useful: a spankin' clean portfolio and a website.

Portfolio: SO important, I cannot begin to stress its value. Your work must be clean and well taken care of. If you think that putting your sketches of all different sizes and formats into a grubby folder and hauling that to your interview is fine because 'you're an artist and they'll see the talent. I'm not production! I'm creating here!,' get ready for a rude awakening. They will shut you down so fast you'll be out of there in 15 minutes.

This is a business meeting. Go there in a suit, with a clean portfolio (preferably wrapped in plastic for storage to KEEP it clean between interviews) and images of fine quality that show a variety of your work. I recommend one commercial portfolio book and one only; the best on the market by far are PRAT portfolios of the leather Macao-309 portbook system. I have two different sizes of their portfolio cases, one is the larger that takes 17"x14" Cristal Laser sheet-protectors, and a smaller portbook that takes 8.5" x 11". This portfolio is the best for many reasons, my favorite being the reversed spine. The spine is where the handle is so that when you carry your works, they are actually hanging down inside the portfolio.This way, in transport or in storage, your pages do not slouch down and crinkle inside causing folds or other damage to your works. I cannot stress how important this is.

This brings me to my second favorite feature: Multiring mechanism featuring exclusive locking system. There are fewer clips in this PRAT system which means fewer places for your pages to catch when turning them. This is also the first portfolio I've seen that successfully keeps shut so that the pages don't slip out in places. Another fun feature of this is that the pages themselves are not multi-layerd free moving pages at the edge where they meet the locking rings. They are sealed together, so instead of 3 or more separate layers that can try to individually slip out of the rings, you merely have one thicker page layer that likes to stay very much in place. This version also has the portfolio as one piece rather than their Mera line which has a removable binder to hold your pieces. I suggest the one-piece. It's sturdier for your work.

Website: Well, you're here, aren't you? You're seeing my work, you're liking my design, you come back because it tries to be fun and is updated all the time, right? Well then, study the elements of all your favorite websites. Find out what makes them fun or interesting for you. Find out the elements that make you go back for updates. Then come up with your own design and incorporate those element ideals (don't copy — you know what I mean). Finally the key is exposure. Now, doing a poster for a popular web comic and getting your site on the front page of places like CGChannel, Digitalart, Megatokyo and Bioware certainly help for exposure ;}, but just submitting to search engines and being a part of forums help too. Eventually, the more people want to see your work, the more they'll visit. It's not an overnight road to success, but every little bit helps. Just get creative and try to keep your chin up. ;}

For Traditional.

Paper: White xerox paper... if I'm desperate. If I want a treat, I use extra white xerox paper. Yup! That's it! I don't go out and buy all of the most expensive brands out there. Why? Because anything that is on paper for me is a sketch or a finished pencil or simply what I'm going to do until I scan it in for Photoshop. If you want archival quality paper for long lasting formal works of art, then yes, you need better paper. But if you're just practicing and/or are planning on scanning it into the computer? Why waste the money?

Pencils: Sure, if you want use your good old #2. But what I find as my personal favorite are two pencils in particular...

For sketches or non-final drawings: I simply grab my mechanical pencil. I think it's about .05 size lead. HB for softness is my favorite for general use.

For final drawings or more important sketches: My 'Old Faithful.' This is just an old blue clutch pencil that takes those long thick rods of lead. I prefer to use this because if you have the clutch pencil sharpener for it, you can get such a wonderfully fine point that supremely outperforms the mechanical pencil anyday. The HB lead seems to draw a little darker too... not sure why.

Erasers: There is no better eraser than the kneadable eraser. It's this lump of maleable gray stuff that is perfect for pencil lines. Other erasers can tear or smear your paper, and they leave eraser dust everywhere. The kneadable eraser is compact, cleanable (just pull it apart several times) and moldable to any shape you want. ;} Kneadable erasers: the only eraser you'll ever 'knead'. ;}

Pens: I don't ususally ink anymore. Just some nice crisp lines with my sharpened clutch pencil, and I'm ready to scan. However if you do want to get some pens for inking, I do have a favorite I always use. Pigma Micron Felt tip pens. They're a dream. They don't bleed. They don't smear (don't push it tho) and they are pretty waterproof. I love them. They come in all sizes. My favorite is 05. They look like this:

For Scanning. I personally have a Microtek ScanMaker 9600XL. (Santa loved me one year.) Yes, a nicer scanner will produce nicer results, but I don't think top of the line is necessary. Just get a decent average scanner and follow these rules:

1. Always scan a little higher resolution than you are planning on using for your final size.
   
   
2. Once scanned, hit Ctrl+Shift+U. That's the keyboard shortcut to desaturate the color from the pic. This will get rid of any weird streaks you might have for the most part.
   
   
3. Next is a little experiment: try hitting Ctrl+Shift+L. This is the autolevel shortcut. It might get most of the darks very nicely dark and tend to brighten the whole picture more than just the grays of pencil. BUT! It will usually leave blotchiness from the paper texture itself. Depending on the blotchiness, you may or may not keep this step.
   
   
4. See how bad it is by hitting Ctrl+L for the keyboard shortcut of the Levels Window (edit>adjust>levels). Move the rightmost arrow a little left to increase your highlights. Usually this gets rid of a fair amount of that paper blotchy. Also, try moving the mid arrow to the left a little to decrease the mid tones. That should take care of the rest of them without damaging your darks too much. It's all a guessing game, really though. If it's far too blotchy to balance out no matter what, skip the autolevels step and just go straight to the regular levels step.
   

That's how I get my pencils to look like inks. ;}

For Digital. Well, I have a few programs I flirt through for my cgs, but not too many. My main program of choice is Adobe Photoshop (7.0 currently). I also recommend Adobe Illustrator and Painter but I haven't used them for years. I also use Adobe Go Live for my webdesign. I am starting to learn how to 3D model, and am familiar with XSI (SoftImage) and Maya now, but I only use them as a time shortcut for perspective by painting on top of the primitive boxes and spheres. That's it. No rendered images. No weird VooDoo spells on my mouse. In fact, that reminds me, mice: I have a very old two-button mouse that I have had for about ten years. Jhenna, Savannah and everything you see in my portfolio besides the Pirogoeth and Memorial posters were completely created with a mouse. Yes, I just recently bought an Intuos 9 x 12 Tablet, but that is only for speed. I still find my mouse more convenient at times. So no complaining that if only you had a tablet, your art would be so much better! ;P ;}

As I'm hoping to prove with the materials I listed, it's not the materials that make the artwork, it's the hand using them. So get practicing! ;}

"How do you get rid of the sketchiness to your paintings from your scanned lines?"

Well, this question has been asked to me a lot and it really has two directions to look at it. For the scanning question, to reduce sketchmarks to result in cleaner scans to start from, see the materials question above to explain my presentation habits for readying art.

As for those who are asking how I get rid of the sketchy lines in my artwork when clearly in my tutorials it states I color using my linework in my Photoshop document, this answer is a little different. Yes, I use my sketches as my top layer for my final paintings (see The Making Of Mynx for more details). I used my sketches for the top layer for Jhenna, Savannah and just about every piece I do. I use them as guides, piece by piece until there are no more parts that remain uncolored. What this means is, they remain my top layer, but rarely do I keep them in the final work. There are two things I do with my sketches:

1. They are merely used as guides to follow as reference until all work is completed to a point where I do not need to use the sketch any more. At that point, the sketch layer is deleted (or made invisible, depending on my mood. usually deleted) and I keep my color layers as they are for future revisions if necessary.
   
   
2. I duplicate my sketch layers and merge parts of them as I am coloring. For example, if I am working on the skintone layer, I select the parts on that layer by Ctrl+clicking or Command+clicking my skintone layer. Then I inverse it by going up to select>inverse selection. Then I activate my duplicated sketch layer and hit delete. Only the area of the skintones should be what is left of the duplicated sketch layer. Then, turn the layer opacity to multiply (this is how all my sketch layers are, remember) and check the 'preserve transparency' box. If you don't want the lines to be black (from the black and white scan), here is the place to take a light amber brown (for the skin tones) set the brush to 'color' and tone down the sketchlines. As white from the scans is automatically invisible when the layer is in multiply, and white cannot be colored any more white than white, you can use that 'color' brush anywhere, and it will only affect the tones that aren't white. So have at it.
   
   After you're satisfied at the color of the lines, link the duplicated sketch layer to your skin layer and merge linked from your layers pallet. Now you have one layer with lines adhered to it. Check the 'preserve transparency' box on your skin layer. Take a lightly fuzzy brush in your smudge tool, set the pressure to 65-85 or so and blend in the lines on your skin layer. This will get rid of the sketch lines while using them to their best ability in your work.

This is a very general description about my method. I happen to do whatever produces the best result, and having dark or semi-dark lines on the edge of an object isn't always the answer for realism, so take this description with a grain of salt. But that's the general idea.