Cartooning - Creating Motion Blurs

Introduction

I know we've all seen the whiz-lines cartoonists use to make things look like they're moving. They're simple but effective.

Motion Lines example taken from wikipedia

The joke in my latest comic relies on a background that looks like it's moving, but while this whiz-line technique is great for objects, it doesn't work so well for the whole background.

What Does a Moving Background Look Like?

It's easy to find photos with motion blur, and these are a great source of inspiration. The image looks like it's been smeared sideways, this tends to destroy detail and soften the focus.

Image from Dan Milnor's Photography Blog

Recreating The Motion Blur Effect

Start off with a relatively simple background, maybe add a few vertical elements so that the blur will be more noticeable.

My Starting Image

Then do the following:-

• Selected a thin blur tool, then using the line drawing constraint, stretch lines across the page from left to right. (ensure all in same direction)
• Add thin grey lines running across the page, but don't be too perfect here.

Motion Blue and Whiz Lines Added

It really captures the sideways smearing caused by movement, with the grey lines borrowing from the whiz-line technique in a subtle way.

Now, when I add a cowboy riding a rodeo bull, it gives the feel of movement and speed.

The Completed Image

The completed cartoon can be found here --> http://area5-1.thecomicseries.com/comics/81/

Cartooning - Should you use Shading?

Introduction

To shade, or not to shade, that is the question! I recently evolved Area 5.1 into X-Failes so that I could show more detail and produce a more colourful product, but recently I've been feeling that it's been taking too much time. Truth be told, if it had gained me loads more views and likes I wouldn't care, but it hasn't.

I do use the following techniques to speed things up.

• Re-use characters and objects.
• Trace pictures of items I'm unfamiliar with.
• Re-use backgrounds.

But although shading can look really nice, it takes time, even when re-using artwork. Just flipping the image over usually requires extra effort, negating the time saved while you re-work the shading. And I didn't help myself by giving him tattoos.

Cartoon with Shading

Moving to a Flatter Style

Looking at the new style, it looks like I just copied from the cartoon above, removed the shading and tweaked it. But those elements have been re-used a few times and the fact they line up is just by chance.

Cartoon with flatter colouring

The thing I didnt expect was the colours to look bolder. I haven't been 100% consistant with eradicating the shading so there's still a slightly 3D feel about it.

The biggest time saver is probably the background. It's not much more effort than roughing it out with pencil and adding a bit of colour with a large marker pen. I then reduced the saturation by making it slightly opaque. The softer background does provide some degree of separation from the foreground objects, it focuses the reader a little.

Link to latest cartoon : http://area5-1.webcomic.ws/comics/76/

Sketchy Details - Planning your Cartoon

Intro

My usual method of creating a cartoon tends to follow this process:-

1. Have great idea.
2. Write down dialogue and review.
3. Draw pencil sketch or thumbnails.
4. Draw each frame on the tablet.
5. Import into ComicLife and compose.
6. Finalise and resize to 850px wide.

Step 3 often looks like it's been missed, that's because I rough it out on the tablet, or I create empty planning frames (with dilogue) in ComicLife. More often than not, I just plan it in my head, but there's always some sort of plan, there has to be.

The last X-Fails had quite a detailed sketch, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Sketch Plan

You'll notice there's some quite extreme camera angles in this cartoon. We start off with a high level of perspective viewed from below, using the vanishing point method to scale the policeman's body. But you have to be brave and really draw those boots big if you want him to appear close up. The next three shots are simple close-ups showing the dialogue and that pistol action. They were chosen to focus the readers attention to try and increase the level of misdirection. Finally we have a standard frame to fill the page width with the big reveal. (Five's a difficult number to arrange otherwise)

Here's the link to the finished cartoon, often things get changed along the way, but this time it came out quite close:

http://area5-1.webcomic.ws/comics/74/

Web Comics with Stories

Intro

I'm now four episodes into X-Fails and things are going well. Viewing figures are acceptable and I'm finding it's actually easier to generate ideas using the story arc method. I first tried this out with my Star Wars episodes (links here)

• Trooper Trouble
• Use The Force
• Search The Droids 
• Rescue The Droids

It was fun to put my own spin on the Star Wars universe and it had the advantage that one idea easily led into the next.

So with X-Fails, the drawing is more interesting. It takes more effort, but I think it's easier for people to relate to. The little green men may still make the odd appearance, but for now I'm convinced that X-Fails is the right direction.

Changing Style

The original idea for Area 5.1 was quick and simple drawing so that weekly submissions would be possible. But I soon found that generating usable ideas could be a problem. Also, as my drawing skills improved there was little scope for improving those aliens, unless I re-designed them.

So X-Fails evolved, giving me more scope to include new characters and taking the story idea and running with it. I still try and make each page funny, but they're no longer as "stand-alone".

Area 5.1 (X-Fails) - Say No More

Link to the cartoon: http://area5-1.webcomic.ws/comics/73/

Here we see a new character, who could be a local busy-body, or maybe somebody important, but the boys accept his help without realising they could be getting themselves into trouble. Judging by the few comments I have received, people just wanted them to start digging, so I was happy to oblige.

You'll find out soon whether they find anything interesting, or just get into trouble. Hopefully people will get hooked into the story and they'll keep coming back.

But, if it's stand-alone comics you want, there's always FunStreak, or any of the others listed down the right of this page.