Storyboard Pro offers by far the best software for drawing storyboards The software is very intuitive and logical so it's fast to learn and easy to work with. Courtesy of Toon Boom.

For those of you who don't know me, I've been storyboarding for a long time. I have worked on literally thousands of both live-action and animated projects.

I love storyboarding. Like many of you classically trained artists, I like the feel of my pencil gliding on good paper. I like that slight texture of the paper and the drag of the lead as I draw.

I like visually telling stories with directors. I like spreading the pages of boards on my drafting table and looking at an entire sequence as I work.

What I don't like is having to redraw an entire frame just because I don't like the size, position or quality of part of the frame. I don't like having to redraw the same background over and over in subsequent panels. I don't like my finger smudging the soft ink or the copy machine smearing my original art.

Any of this sound familiar?

I bring all this up because technology and a certain storyboard software have finally given us the feel and speed of drawing the way we like and has resolved most of the problems we had with working on paper.

Storyboard Pro open screen. Unless otherwise noted, all images courtesy of Mark Simon.

Hardware technology allows us to in draw realtime with digital tablets. The new Wacom Cintiq monitor/tablets give us the same texture and feel as drawing on paper. Processor speed and hard drive size allow us draw and save as fast and as much as we want.

I use Photoshop for much of my boarding. While it's great for drawing, coloring and effects, it's not very good for quickly reviewing an entire sequence, adding script information or real-time animatics. It's also a huge hog of hard drive space and doesn't work with audio.

While Storyboard Pro isn't perfect, it is by far the best software for drawing storyboards I have ever used. Plus, the software is very intuitive and logical so it's fast to learn and easy to work with.

When you first start the software, you are given a choice of formats and resolution to draw in. Don't be concerned at the resolution, as this software draws with vector shapes, so your art is infinitely scalable. This scalability is extremely useful when zooming in on the action and not seeing pixelation.

Drawing workspace.