Posts tagged “process”
My submission for Where They Draw. Here are my two work stations, one digital, and one analog, and my most-used tools.
Working on a 5-page comic for the next issue of the Spanish comics anthology Usted Está Aquí.
If the drawing is going to be coloured mechanically […] there is usually a whiteout stage as well. I painstakingly fix up every line to make them more perfect […]
If the artwork is going to be coloured directly on the paper in watercolour, I can’t do this “fixing” stage because the artwork obviously cannot have whiteout all over it […] That means […] when I ink for watercolouring, I simply don’t make any mistakes that need whiting out. It’s a trick of the mind. If I can do this for the watercolour drawings, why can’t I do it for the mechanical method? Who knows. All I know is that if I am allowed to make mistakes I will make them — if I can’t, I won’t.
My Picture Book Report illustration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is late today, and will be posted tomorrow.
But I thought I’d at least share the roughs and some of my process today.
The book is full of so many great little details and moments, that it’s hard to compress it into single illustrations, so I decided to do a sort of hybrid of illustration and comics. It’s not meant to be read as a comic — it’s more a series of related spot illustrations bound together in a grid of panels.
Here we have the initial sketchbook thumbnail (blown up for scale) followed by my initial rough layout, and a second tighter rough with my colour choices. I’m keeping the colours simple this time, limiting each illustration to three colours plus black and white.
Tune in tomorrow for the finished piece.
I’m happy to answer, but I’m afraid it’s not too interesting.
Any cartoon-style inking you’ve seen is actually done in Manga Studio (or actual ink), and not Photoshop. Manga Studio often feels like half-finished software, especially compared to Photoshop, but its drawing tools are much better for cartooning (or at least mimicking dip pens and brushes).
My settings do not vary much from the default, but here’s a screenshot of what I use:
I have the buttons on the side of my Cintiq set up so that one of them alternates between black and transparent inks, and the other toggles the auto-correction to help smooth out large, clean arcs, which otherwise get a little wobbly.
Additionally, these settings will produce entirely different results based on the sensitivity settings in the Wacom preferences, and based on how much pressure you draw with.
So really, what works for me, might not work for you. It all depends on what kind of a line you’re trying to create, how you work, and how your hardware is calibrated. With any piece of software or art tool, experiment and find what works best for you. There is no right way.
I occasionally do the inking for Bob Weber Jr.’s Slylock Fox. Here’s a sped-up recording of me working. Music: Goofus by Al Caiola from the album Music for Space Squirrels.
Heart of Gold Process
Here’s an early preview of my next Hitchhiker’s Guide illustration for Picture Book Report, which goes live tomorrow. It’s my take on the Starship Heart of Gold. I’ll write a bit more about the illustration itself later, but I wanted to share some of my process and inspiration in a separate post.
I’ve been collecting photos of vans, campers, and RVs in my digital morgue file. There’s something wonderfully absurd about these big, chunky vehicles with speedy-looking decals and graphics printed on them — like a fat man wearing a sporty track suit.
Even though, in the book, the Heart of Gold is described as being pure white and shaped like a running shoe, I thought it seemed like the perfect opportunity to use some of these photos as reference. Suddenly a spaceship inspired by camper vans seemed only natural.
As particularly genius as I thought this all was, a horrible thought occurred to me after finishing the illustration. There was a reason that a spaceship that looked like a camper seemed so inspired.
I had just ripped off Spaceballs.
I have spent the last few days drawing dozens of these little doodles and characters, with the intention of using them for a project. Only now that I’ve drawn them, I’ve realized how wrong they are for what I’m doing. So I’ve decided to scrap all that work and start over.
In a fit of frustration last night, I started sketching a new idea, which is not only stronger, but also seemed to form out of thin air. It didn’t, of course. I wouldn’t have been able to have that fifteen minutes of pure inspiration if I didn’t first endure those two full days of going down the wrong path.
It’s why you should never find yourself having not drawn anything for longer than a day. When you’re not drawing, you fill up with bad drawings, and it takes longer to get them out of your system. Your drawing hand is like the shark that needs to keep moving so that it doesn’t die.
OpenSRS sports team logos
Several weeks ago, Ken at OpenSRS asked if I’d be interested in helping him invent some sports teams to exist in the OpenSRS universe — sports teams that the mascots and characters that populate their website would potentially join or be fans of. These teams would be realized in the form of t-shirts for OpenSRS staff and clients. Here are the final designs, which I think turned out great. In addition to designing the logos, I also got to brainstorm and give the teams their tames.
I thought I’d share some of my process. After zeroing in on the team names (rejected ideas included the Zambonis, Netizens, Dribblers, and Bowl Weevils) I sketched up some rough ideas: 
Ken liked these, but wanted these shirts to be tied closer to the OpenSRS branding. I took my favourites from the various roughs, and redesigned them to incorporate the colours, shield, and star from the OpenSRS logo: 
Eventually we used different colours for each sport, but these refined roughs were enough for me to then create the final versions.
Nick Lowe on style
I’ve been using Huffduffer to bookmark found audio into a custom podcast. Tonight I re-listened to an interview with songwriter Nick Lowe. His thoughts on developing a style—and how affectations eventually meld together into something original—apply to any creative endeavour, cartooning included.
Obviously, like everybody, your first efforts are really just rewrites of your heroes’ songs. It’s basically the same song with a couple of words changed. And you get very keen on somebody. And then you use them up. You sort of rewrite all their stuff, and you move on to somebody else, and do the same to them—rewrite all their stuff. And somebody else comes along, and you do it them.
And then one day, you’ll put a little bit of the first person, whose songs you all rewrote, into your latest fad, and you have a little touch of these two things going on. And then maybe a third element will come in on a song you’re writing. So you’ll have three different influences in there. And then the more you do it … ‘Cause it’s all been done. It’s all been written. There is nothing new under the sun, especially nowadays. Absolutely nothing. But what IS new is the way you tell it, and eventually, you have so many influences in a song, that it just turns into a new style.
