Pictorial Essay of Cover for upcoming last GROOVY GRAVY

The Making of a Yew Norker

Haven’t done one of these ‘how I make stuff’ posts, but someone was asking about the Yew Norker cartoons and its abit different to the way I usually do printed comics. I’ve done 4 panel strips specifically ‘Cartoonist’ which taught me how to get across an idea in a minimum number of panels. I learnt the basic introduction/ premise/ punchline storyline. So, I wanted to try doing single panel comics as I was not something I had tackled before. For years I’d been looking at single panel comics from big New Yorker, Punch & Esquire books. It came apparent to me that one of the themes seem to be white privilege type problems, particularly in New Yorker cartoons. So, I used that as a theme, but tried to make them more extreme rather than twee. Though if you look at New Yorker cartoons these day they’re pretty good! 

Annoying idiot- ‘Where do you get ideas from?’ From a big blank book and a biro in my house. Whenever I have an idea for anything I quickly grab this and scribble the idea down. I’ve gotten into the habit of carrying a pen and paper to write ideas down anywhere I am, as typing on a phone takes too long for me.

I wanted to make the process quicker than my usual sitting at my drawing board table process. I pencil sketch the idea in an A4 sketchbook with my handy-dandy drawing board, which is a slab of particle board found in hard rubbish!

I ink with a lamy fountain pen, I do simple line work with little crosshatching, so it’s usually a quick process. In the past, I’ve used roting tech pens, but they clog, the ink runs erratically and they’re hard to fill. Now they gather dust.

Its then time to scan. I got a decent flatbed scanner for artwork that sits on my scanner/printer. I scan a 600 tif file because I want to print these panels in a book later.

I put the tif in Photoshop to do the greys. Ink wash would be fun, but Photoshop is quicker and I’m able to fix any problems quickly. Really, it’s a matter of picking different hues if the drawing is complicated, if the drawing is simple I stick to the one tone of grey.

I usually wouldn’t use computer type, but in this case it works for the overall  theme of the work. 

ledger awards 2017

My mini comic zine Amusing stories of photocopy toner on white parchment comics has been nominated for a Ledger Award to see all the nominees go here-

http://ledgerawards.org/2017-short-list-announced/

Water colour the BLAND way,part2

 

You need to be patient & plan. You have to wait for paint to dry in areas as I don't want my colours  to mix with other wet colours. After it dries, you can start to ink.Again I'm just using a small paint brush, a water colour one again.I add a lot of  detail, but steer clear of cross hatching. Its been taken care of by the water colour method I've used.

 TA-DA! Ive finished about a week later! Aren't I a HAPPY BLOCKHEAD!

Water colour the BLAND way! Part 1

 I got asked to do something to hang on a wall for an exhibition in Melbourne.So I knew I'd tackle a water colour. It was just a question of what to do. So I went to my handy dandy sketch-book & picked an image out of that. I found a really good quality water colour pad in a op-shop for $3! So first it was a process of  stretching the paper. That means taping to a back board & sponging the paper with a damp sponge.It buckles at  1st, but then flattens out after drying. This mean when your using large amounts of water & water colour paint it now wont buckle up. 

 So then we sketch  roughly !away

 Then tighten & remove your construction lines lines.

 With water colour I tend to pick a light source.Then blob paint where I think the shadows will be.
Then add a lot of water to unpainted areas of the page to drag the water colour out of an painted area to  the unpainted  areas.So then colour gets less intense away from the paint source.

COMICS THE BLAND WAY! part 5093

 I figure out comics in all different ways. I thumbnail, write scripts, do stuff free form. For whatever reason sketchbooks are relatively ‘new’ to me (which I really regret!). As in I’ve cartooned forever, but only used sketchbooks for the last 10 years. Now I basically carry one everywhere. I have a travel one, which is more about rough sketching and to combat boredom on trains, etc. The other is more about doing pretty pictures and experiment with colour. But these are my mind banks now. In other words if I get “where do your ideas come from?’” questions, I can shove one of these books in their face. Before this, I used lined paper books doing little pen thumbnails. But sketchbooks are great to think visually. Which is what I’m more interested as I get older, rather than dense written narrative.

I kind of made the rapture as I went along, in a sketchbook about two years ago. I was asked to do a strip for a comic book about ‘anything’ relatively over a weekend and I had this sketchbook comic sitting there. So because of lack of time I drew the strip A4. I usually draw A3 (I find A4 too cramped) but it was quicker to draw smaller. Some of it works the finished strip is relevantly ‘cleaner’ looking. But it is always hard to get the look you like in rough sketches of poses and character composition in cleaned up work. Also I liked some of the layout of the pages in the sketchbook copy over the finished version. I’m kind of surprised that the dialogue didn’t change that much from sketchbook to comic strip. But it seems good & I needed to finish this sucker fast!

Equipment

I have this old broken drafting board that I picked up from a school I was working at 19 years ago. The students were using as a cutting board! So I saved it for myself, and taped some cardboard on it . Boy! Did it save my back!My modified drawing board sits atop a fifty year old picnic table my father made.I bought an over head lamp from Ikea,it's O.K. but my head gets really hot!
I use a Arttec fineliner paper pad.An A3 pad is about 20 dollars for 50 sheets. Its a good quality paper that puts up with alot of abuse. It also holds alot of ink and doesn't buckle badly.Remember to have a art tin to put all your art pens & pencils in.I like this one as the girls are probably talking about purchasing knee high socks & swap cards.
Bye,that's it for THE BLAND WAY.Im just watching Peep show now.See ya next time.....

Inking

The way I ink came about by making a mistake. I was doing a school assignment many years ago & dropped a big blob of ink on my artwork. So I went over that line several times to get that blobby line look with a mapping quill.
I actually thought that's how cartoonists got that thick/thin line going with ink,not realzing about brushes!
My crosshatching is all over the place,but i do look for a source of light. A lot of influence comes from looking at guys like Crumb or Hogarth. But you know I don't hold a candle to their stuff....
I mostly use a mapping quill like a hunt 102,but for some stuff(mostly sketch book) Ill use rapidograph tech pens.
I use rapidograph ink, Its fantastic quality.The last time I bought it some it was $80.00 for 250ml.But it lasts about 10 years a bottle. Ive spent a lot of time of time watering down the ink. It gives it a smoother transition to the paper.

I usually ink outlines, then detail & cross hatching.