Question on creating and processing designs for skateboards.

[Elderly Gentleman]

    I have a friend who has a small, local deck company.  I have some design ideas that I've ran by him and his business partners and they really like them.  Most of my art experience is old school paper and pencil and I'm terrible at drawing on the computer. 
    I'm planning to buy a new computer this weekend.  Does anyone have a good recommendation for what type of software would make it easiest to scan and edit artwork so that it could be used for board designs?  Most people say Adobe photoshop and illustrator.  I was thinking of getting a Chromebook, but I heard it doesn't run either (or it's a complicated process).  Are there alternative software types out there that work well?  Does anyone have a recommendation on a good process to load drawings onto a computer to be edited, sized, colored and transferred to decks?  The manufacturer has all the software to put it on the deck, I just need to know what formats I can use to deliver the pictures to them that will be the easiest for them to work with.
    I'm a pretty good artist, but I'm pretty far behind on transferring and finishing with a computer. 

[posguy]

CorelDraw X7 kind of blends Photoshop and Illustrator. I use it at work and it works pretty well once you get used to it. I personally would recommend a Mac book pro and Adobe but most can't afford it. Definitely post this same question on a design forum too though.

[skate_bored]

The basic idea here would be to scan your image and then use the software to create a new layer on the file where you trace over the graphic. The company that produces the decks will have some type of guidelines which will determine exactly which method you do this with, but thats the general idea. From there, all you need to do is type exactly what you're doing into Google or Youtube and you'll get a million helpful tutorials. For example, "How to turn drawing into vector image using Adobe Illustrator"...The internet is better than any school I've attended.

As for software and a computer, you can probably get by running a $400 Acer or something along those lines and signing up for the Adobe Creative Cloud, which allows you to access their software for a monthly fee (think Netflix), instead of dropping thousands on all of it. There are always Torrents too, but the Creative Cloud option is pretty affordable and you don't risk dealing with viruses.

Good luck!!

[Elderly Gentleman]

Thanks,
     I heard about the Adobe cloud service for Chromebook but I wasn't sure how well it worked compared to just getting a windows computer and getting Illustrator.  Basically, my plan is to do the drawing on paper, doing the rough sketches with non-photo blue pencil and then outline it in Manga India Ink and then scan it to computer to touch up.  Then I'm just going to put it on a thumb drive and give it to the owners of the board co to make any edits or adjustments to it.  I wanted to make sure, however, that it was already a compatible version and sized correctly when I deliver.

[skate_bored]

Thanks,
     I heard about the Adobe cloud service for Chromebook but I wasn't sure how well it worked compared to just getting a windows computer and getting Illustrator.  Basically, my plan is to do the drawing on paper, doing the rough sketches with non-photo blue pencil and then outline it in Manga India Ink and then scan it to computer to touch up.  Then I'm just going to put it on a thumb drive and give it to the owners of the board co to make any edits or adjustments to it.  I wanted to make sure, however, that it was already a compatible version and sized correctly when I deliver.

The cloud service has a few different options that allow you to pick what you need and what you pay for. From what I understand, the Chromebook is almost like a tablet. It runs more in the sense of an iPad, using apps vs traditional software and you'll be pretty limited as far as what you can do. I would probably aim for some type of windows or mac based machine for what you plan on doing, especially if you really want to keep at it. And to be honest, if you don't feel like investing too much you should look on Fiverr and find somebody to do it for you. You can send them your art with the file specs you need and probably have it done in 3 days for very cheap. Like I said though, if you think this is something you're interested in doing a lot, especially since you're an artist, learning how to turn your work into digital files is a huge help in the long run.

[Elderly Gentleman]

Thanks, I'll go for a windows based laptop.  I'm familiar with that and I've heard that windows 10 has fixed a lot of the complaints of 8.  Then again, who am I to talk?  I'm still using a laptop with freakin' Vista!