Cartooning - Return of the Little Green Men

Introduction

At this time of the year there are a lot of coughs and sneezes about, and this idea is based on how annoying these involuntary things can be. Normally all miscellaneous ideas go into Funstreak, but due to the slight violence I decided it might be more acceptable to use my aliens.

It's also perhaps a good time to resurrect the cartoon, which hadn't had an update since September last year.

So what Went Wrong with Area 5.1?

I introduced X-Failes as a new stream to Area 5.1 last year so I could try a story based cartoon. But it was more work than I was able to cope with, mostly because it semi-detailed artwork and I was still trying to incorporate a joke into each submission. If I hadn't started experimenting with Funstreak then I suppose I'd have slugged on with it, but Funstreak was faster, gave me loads more freedom and opporunity to try different ideas.

I'd also become very uncertain about my use of shading, what level of detail to use and whether the new direction was the correct one. Self doubt had set in and although some said they liked the new stuff, I'd yet to convince myself.

In the end I cut the shading in the last cartoon "Run Like The Wind". I softened and slightly simplified the background to try and reduce time spent on the artwork, but I couldn't quite shake-off the idea that I was never happy with how the new characters were drawn. I was finding that the only way I could keep them consistent was by copy-and-pasting from earlier cartoons, but that just ate time.

I really loved the way my characters looked in the 'Investigators in the Field' promo, but I struggled to create alternative profiles. Here's a great example of what I mean..

Style Issues

You can see here in the front profile that I can't quite decide what's going on with those uni-body styles. I've used shoulders that are too realistic in the later drawing (on the right) and it's given him a thick neck (like he's been eating all the pies). I think it's fair to say that I wasn't comfortable with the body design, or happy about being able to draw it.

I think I went for the best option, I stopped work while I re-considered it.

Return Of the LGM's

So now I've gone back to the Little Green Men, and drawn this...

Returning To What I Know

It might not look it, but it's heavily influenced by my work on Funstreak. It loosely follows the 'Rule of Three' with the final two frames being treated as one, and the style seems a little more relaxed. I'm still finding I'm not consistently happy with all of the frames. (One and three I like,.. two and four not so much!), but it's a starting point for improvements.

In summary, after all this time you'd think we'd settle on how something should look. There must be something built into our psyche that stops us from being happy and pushes us to look for improvements. Perhaps it just shows that I still have a long way to go and shouldn't give up my day job.

Cartooning - Rule of Threes Revisited

Intro

I've just realised that the latest FunStreak cartoon (http://funstreak.webcomic.ws/comics/23) follows the Rule of Threes pattern. The first two boxes set the scene and perform the misdirection, and the last one delivers the punchline.

This one came from a conversation I was having on Saturday morning with my 'significant other'. We were reminiscing about the past, how cute our kids used to be, and talking about how prudity replaces the carefree attitude that children have when they're little. Sometimes the truth slips out in a joke; the grass really was long, and my son help out?.. well let's just leave it there!

The Cartoon

I started off drawing the final frame, adding temporary lines to a vanishing point around the middle of the page. It was important that the final reveal should show the long grass, so it made sense to have the couple actually in a garden. Sunloungers were the simplest thing to draw, I drew one and then mirrored it over to give me the second. The grass was added in layers, a little bit like waves on the sea.

A simple garden scene

Finally a couple of figures and a table were added to complete the scene.

The completed scene

Frames one and two are based on zoomed in copies of this image. It's a great way of re-using the artwork, but ensure you alter the figures to provide a bit of variation.

Zoomed in Images for Frames 1 and 2

Simple Really.

The Rule of Threes in Cartoons

My Biker Safety cartoon evolved from the simple drawing of my son's Piaggio scooter into a full comic idea over a number of days. I'd initially planned for three frames, which wasn't a conscious decision, but after coming up with a good punchline image, I found that I couldn't think of a good middle frame.

I decided to put together what I had to see if I could get away with it, but my concerns turned out to be justified. It wasn't working very well in that format.

The first (two frame) version of Biker Safety

I wondered why this was and came up with the following observations:-

• The pictures are too similar and there's not enough separation (so you look down to the last image too early).
• There isn't enough misdirection to trick you into thinking the joke is about safety.
• It doesn't follow the rules of three. (see what I did there?.. no,..ok I'll explain in a bit)

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

I like quoting Mark Twain, but before I start talking about the rule of three I thought it might be interesting to review the number of frames used for each Area 5.1 cartoon. I dropped the tally into a bar graph and it became obvious that I primarily use one, three or four pictures per strip.

There's actually more single frame work than I'd expected, but a fair amount of this was computer game themed "filler" cartoons from the first year. Back then I was still trying to ensure a weekly output, I've since given over to "a weakly output" of just a couple per month.

What does this tell us?.. well I'm not sure, perhaps that my preference is for ideas that need a bigger setup. Or maybe that I tend to split more wordy dialogue over additional frames to keep it manageable. But could it be that there's something subtle going on that I hadn't realised?

Three's a Jolly Good Fellow

OK sorry about that, couldn't resist it!.. so what's this rule of three then?

Quite simply it's the idea that things are more memorable if they are in threes. Consider the following famous examples:-

• Friends, Romans, countrymen.
• Faith, hope and charity.
• Stop, look and listen.
• The good, the bad and the ugly.

Or the Mark Twain quote I used for the title of the previous section. There's loads of them, they all stick in your head and have a certain resonance about them. We could say that three is the minimum number required to create a pattern, but perhaps it's the sweet-spot. Go much higher and it starts to get complicated or inefficient.

It's commonly used in humour and to illustrate I've included this great joke example from Laura Kightlinger that uses a shocking third element..

"I can’t think of anything worse after a night of drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name, or how you met, or why they’re dead."

1. Starting Point (waking up next to an unknown person)
2. Misdirection following a common theme (can't remember how you met)
3. Punchline (or why they're dead)

Fixing my cartoon

So I went back to the drawing board, desparate to find my misdirection element, and it wasn't until I switched from safety to other biker requirements that I finally found the answer. But it meant I had to finally give one of my characters a name.

The missing middle element

I hope you found that as interesting as I did,.. if you haven't already seen it, check out the finished cartoon here --> http://area5-1.webcomic.ws/comics/67/