WEBCOMIC
I learn a lot from watching other people draw and I want to let people see how I work. This is a video of me doing the pencil sketch and inking for one frame of a cartoon.
I hope people notice how much I erase, the power of an eraser is a great thing. Not because of its ability to erase mistakes. The eraser is great because it gives the artist the confidence needed to take chances. You can always erase if you don't like it. But there is a catch - you must also have confidence that you can redraw anything you erase, then you are free to take chances and be creative.
The characters are just interchangeable tools or vehicles to deliver a joke. When you stick a well developed character in a certain situation, the story almost writes itself. You know how that character will react. The body language, the facial expressions, their temper, body posture, mannerisms, choice of words, everything about them. The character development could be the hardest part to figure out, but once it is in place, it makes everything easer. My advice for character development is simple - Start drawing cartoons and everything will evolve over time.
With my strip, the dad is a mixture of me and my father from the bad temper to the bad parenting. The boy and girl are inspired by my own children. In real life, I have two boys, but that was confusing in the strip so I merged them into one. The girl was defined from the start, both who she was and how I drew her. I struggled with how to draw the mom the most. After four years, I am finally happy with how I draw the mom . She's actually my favorite now, the pug is still in flux.
What I have always struggled with the most is figuring out who my target market is. If you haven't noticed, I have a dark sense of humor.
I try to write for the general public with hopes of someday being syndicated and printed in the newspapers. The fluffy, happy, shinny concepts soon fall from grace and get tarnished and corroded, but that's when they start to get funny! Then I think about the dismal state of the newspapers and the ripe opportunities in the Web, next thing I know I'm trying to explain Michael Jackson, crack cocaine, and huffing paint to my kids. I'm getting off track, but yeah, character development is important.
Humor is a very personal thing. So how do you write for the masses? For a cartoon to be successful, people have to be able to relate to it. On one level a cartoon can be about obscure trivial subject matter, but at the same time, touch a universal emotion such as, fear, loneness, frustration, or love that everyone can relate to. That's cool. If I could make someone forget about the money, problems or fears they face, for just two seconds; to crack a smile, get lost in a drawing or remember a meaningful time in their life - I've done my job.
Sometimes I catch myself trying to deliver three jokes at once. It is hard to see exactly what part of a concept is funny. The editing is so important. Stripping all the crap dialogue and unnecessary words, to reveal just that simple golden moment - that's the secret to timing, and timing is everything. Jerry Bono once said "It's not about shocking, it's about surprise." - I'm still tryin' to wrap my head around that. That innocent expression or frustration that we all know, that's what I like.
Another helpful bit of wisdom I can offer would be to write stuff down immediately, then you will never forget. Sleep with a notebook close at hand. Even if you know it is a bad concept, write it down, it may evolve. Most of my concepts either hit me the night I draw them, or they have been percolating in my head for a few months.
Draw out the frames and actually write out the copy. There is a big difference between an Idea and a worked out concept.
The other thing I can say is stick with it, don’t get discouraged. Just like anything else, practice makes perfect. Most strips are reinvented a few times before making it. The odds are about 6,000 to one for being syndicated. Have faith in yourself, lick your wounds and get back to the drawing board. This will be my third time submitting all new material.
The pencil sketch is the most time consuming part of creating the strip. The reason being, this is the time to solve all the design issues, typography and copy writing. More often than not, this is when you discover your concept was not as complete as you thought. Having a thorough pencil sketch allows you to be whimsical and spontaneous when you are inking. To get a good pencil sketch you must be willing to erase everything if something is not working, this can be very hard to do. It is so easy to fall in love with part of a drawing and waste time trying to conform the rest of the piece to work with that sacred part. To have confidence and know you can recreate anything lifts a tremendous burden, this will show in your drawings.
For materials, at this point I can not afford to be picky. luckily I like to use a number two pencil, which I can steel from my kids' backpacks. I use a kneaded eraser and a Staedler white plastic eraser.
Draw the parameter you intend to work in. This will force you to consider all the cropping aspects of your design before you start inking.
Keep your drawing clean. If your drawing gets lost in a spider web of marks, you can trace the lines you want to keep with a harder pencil and erase with a kneaded eraser. The softer lines will erase first leaving behind a faint line where the harder pencil was. You can then retrace that line.
I use a sharp pencil and I stick a post-it note to the heal of my palm, so I won’t smear my drawings.
To ink my drawings I lay velum paper over my sketch and tape it down with artist tape. This allows me to mess up and start over without wrecking my sketch. Artist tape will not leave sticky residue on your paper or tear the paper when removed. Again, I use a post-it note stuck to the heal of my hand, this time to protect the paper from the oils in my skin. The natural oils from your skin on the paper will resist the ink, leaving light patches that will not scan well.
When tracing the pencil lines with ink, don’t simply trace the lines, but use them as a loose guide and draw again with the ink. Draw, trace - same thing right? Yes, but no. The speed your hand is moving will show in your lines. This mind set will be the difference between a bland line drawing and a drawing with exciting line qualities and emotion.
I used to draw with a sharpie because it was quick and had a whimsical quality. I later figured out it was the opposite. I spent too much time fixing up my drawings with the computer and the lines were all the same. Now I use a brush and ink.
I draw with a cup of water on hand to clean my brush when I want a thin line. I keep a piece of scratch paper to sharpen my brush every time I dip it. I use the same brush for everything, I think it is a number two red sable. I rinse it with water and keep the ferrule clean. Most importantly, I hide it from my kids. A good brush can last a lifetime, if you have a good hiding spot. I use a number four technical pen and a ruler for the frames. About half my drawings, I will redraw a few times before I get one I am satisfied with. Many drawings are a compilation of deferent drawings I piece together in the computer.
All my type is done with a brush. I think of hand lettered type as an opportunity to be expressive. I have always been a big fan of typography and graffiti. I think it dates back to studying the cereal boxes "Cap'n Crunch" an' "Count Chocula" as I slurped down my sugar fix.
I am a proud Mac user. I scan my drawings, bring them into Illustrator, live trace and expand the art. After deleting all the white, I tweak the lines with the eraser and pencil tools. To color my work I do not use live paint. I prefer to make a separate layer and draw some gray tone shapes with the pencil tool and mouse. The drawings are exported from Illustrator as a psd, I bump the levels and save for web in Photoshop.
