Art
for Fart's Sake
No one asked but here's how I create my cartoons:
After I compose the main action in a spiral notebook I whip
out an 8.5"X11" piece of Bristol paper and lightly sketch
the cartoon in pencil. In the old days I would have used
a blue pencil but scanners can be set to ignore all but
the
darkest
of
pencil lines.
I will then ink the sketch with a standard Ultra Fine Point
Sharpie.
This is a not a professional tool but I feel the awkward
line quality suits
the style of my 'toons. Plus it's waterproof so my accursed
left-hand doesn't smear the ink everywhere.
I then scan the art at 600dpi in Black and White mode and
import it into Photoshop. After a quick Save I begin
recomposing any awkward areas.
Once satisfied I'll then
Paste and
position the
type in place along with their associated word balloons.
At this point I will Zoom way in and perform a final clean-up
of the art, whiting out any little black blobs the Sharpie
is
famously prone
to
and redrawing
or repositioning any of the line art. This can take a few
minutes or over an hour depending on how sloppy the original
art
was. Once done with this editing I set the art layer to Multiply,
which means the white
areas
of
the
art
are
now transparent allowing the colors in lower layers to be
seen underneath the now opaque black lines.
Each character or object in the art now gets its own labeled
folder and each piece of each character is given it
own named layer, like "skin", or "hair", or "nuclear dildo". I
will then use the Magic Wand to Select an area in the Art
layer and then apply color to the proper layer in the proper
folder. Once all the base colors are in place I will come
back and add final rendering, like shading and/or textures. After
that it's just a matter of saving a copy at 72dpi and slapping
it all over the inter-tubes.
The above (mostly) describes how I also create my professional
assignments, minus the Sharpie.
You'll notice that I don't use a digital drawing tool, like
a Wacom table, because they just don't feel comfortable to
my
hand.
And since I'm seventeen years into the 'toon, and 40+ years as a creative, I
doubt I'll change anytime soon.
If you found any of this interesting then stick around.
I may someday regale you with tales of how I lost my virginity
to a
Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent hand-puppet
or how I once ate an entire VW Volkswagen Beetle on a dare.
=Lefty=
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