looking back, looking forward

Looking back over some previous posts on this blog, things have moved on considerably in a remarkably short time.

A year ago I was only just setting out on my Yvonne journey, and I've just published #108

Sometimes I've set out wanting to express some kind of message (read: have a rant). This one is unusual in that since drawing it I've been struggling to find my position on the matters within. It started out as a skit on the old sexist 'make us a cup of tea, love' and I suppose for comedy value I looked for the unexpected turn.

I'm not saying that being submissive to bad behaviour should be rewarded, and I'm not having a go at the feminist.

If anything, I suppose my position is that it's good to have principles, but sometimes sticking to them can be counter-productive.

It was very quick to produce; largely a 'copy and paste' job, with a bit of rubbing out and an extra few lines (the heart and the tails).

Building a Web Comic (Part 1)

This is my first post of the year, so happy belated new year. I've been pretty busy putting together a new comic, which has taken a lot of time and mind-space. But it's been an interesting experience, so I thought it would be good to blog about it.

Coming up with an Idea

The whole thing was inspired by Shiela's Yvonne comic, which is always a single frame with a simple sheep drawing. It goes a long was to show that simple doesn't mean less.

It got me thinking that I should try something similar, and came up with the idea to parody or lampoon the idiocy and non-sense of modern life using aliens. I started out by making a list of the things that annoy me, things I find stupid, or things that I think are just wrong. But it's funny,.. at first I couldn't think of anything for my list. It was as though I was suddenly the most content person in the world. (and I knew that wasn't the case!!)

So I did a few google searches to find what other people find annoying, and all those repressed irritations came flooding back to me. Now when something that happens that makes me angry I make a note it on my phone for later.

Designing the Characters

Initially I set about drawing possible alien designs and we blogged about this last month...

My blog from 23rd Dec
Shiela's blog from 26th Dec

We came up with a few good ideas, but nothing really hit my remit of being really simple to draw. After-all Yvonne was just a cloud shape, with a few lines for legs, and a T shaped head. If I couldn't keep the design as simple as possible the drawing overhead would be too high to sustain.

A week or so later (after a bit more thought), I came up with a really simple design which was really just a face with arms and legs with eyes on stalks. This would enable me to focus on facial expression, dialogue and minimal props.

My initial alien design I drew on my iPad

Developing the Character

At this stage it seemed like I had everything in place to make a start, but it's best to spend a little time re-drawing your character, using different mouths and eyes (because it's mainly these two things that carry the expressions). My idea was that if I put together a "kit" of body parts then either of us could build comics using as standard file and they're look pretty consistent.

Not having done much cartoon work I found some facial expression cheat sheets on Pinterest that really helped. Soon I had half a dozen mouths and eyes which I thought would be a good start.

A selection of eyes

A selection of mouths

And then I added all of the other body parts to see the completed alien, and to check that it all works together.

The completed alien

Developing an Idea

The next bit requires quite a bit of thought... how do you turn a simple list of things you hate into something funny? We found in practice that the existence of the list started ideas bouncing back and forth, initially by email. But ideas were then scattered about emails, so I moved the list to a shared folder in google drive and we started entering comments and counter-ideas directly. (It really helps to have somebody to discuss your ideas with)

For example we'd start out with a simple bullet point...

• dog poo on the paths 

I then came up with an idea for a series of frames..

2 Aliens walking dog like things - one is clearly huge (you only see the lead running upwards)

1st Alien (with big dog) “Do you ever not clear up afterwards?”

2nd Alien “Well, if nobody’s watching I just leave it”

1st Alien “I find somebody always notices” - Picture a huge dump with legs towering above it. 

Shiela then added her comments in purple..

This is really funny. But the laugh for me was at the start when you described the lead going up in the air implying a massive dog. The line about clearing up is very funny, but then it lost me - I don’t think it needs any more because it’s implied, or people have already jumped to their own conclusion

And then I replied in blue.. 
Yeah, you’re right, it doesn’t need that last picture.

I now had the basis for my first cartoon strip which would consist of 3 frames and the dialogue listed in my original idea. In the next part I will take you through how to pull the idea together, and finalising the design as a comic strip.

copying to learn?

I thought the best way to become better at this was to copy characters that I spot and like. Now I'm getting the urge to pick up a pen when I see a nicely-drawn character.

Almost immediately I felt the need for a wider pen. The widest one I have is 0.8 which seems pretty thick but in these examples the thickest (single) lines look pretty thin. Plus colouring in Mickey's ears was laborious. Actually not in a bad way - I started to see what these people are getting out of the adult colouring books!

First cartoon idea with alien

I drew a whole frame featuring an alien and I went for a new idea - tentacled squid. The helmet (and the flying saucer) indicate that it's an alien rather than a squid.

This is how I scribble them in the book before tracing them in pen

Sketchbookin'

I had a short wait in a waiting room yesterday, so inspired by a Craftsy course I'm taking, pulled out a little sketchbook and drew what was around me.

It's not great but probably better than anything I'd have been able to do (or have been prepared to show anyone) previously.

Unlike the boots, there's an entire scene (and also unlike the boots, there's no real subject!) I tried to think about shadows, but there's still no real dark areas in the picture, as there would have been in the scene in front of me.

Turn your iPad into a drawing pad for your Mac using Astropad

Funny how you stumble onto something

I've been watching youtube videos tonight that compare Cintiq Companions, with iPad Pros and Surface 3's. I'm kinda leaning towards the iPad + Apple Pencil, but I wanted to see some opinions from some of the pro artists.

I stumbled across a comparison of an iPad Pro and the Cintiq 13HD, which while it isnt' a like for like comparison, he had it set up so the iPad was working as a drawing tablet for his mac. He was able to do this with an App called Astropad.

That got me thinking, I have an ipad and jot script stylus, for the sake of £15 it was worth a try. And if it doesn't work very well then I can still use it for a new iPad Pro, should I decide to go for that.

Astropad Purchase Screen in the App Store

Installing Astropad

After purchasing the App (and I think it's the most expensive one I've bought so far), you next download the Mac software which enables the link to be made. It does make you wonder why Apple don't do something like this, but perhaps it's a little niche.

Next step is to decide whether to use WIFI or USB to connect. I chose USB because the battery was running low on my iPad. It then just worked straight away. I've used screen sharing software before but this is a two way link. It gives you control of the Mac.

Next thing was to boot up SketchBook Pro and have a play. Astropad has a tool side bar which has a number of useful actions. It almost worked correctly for SketchBook, but can be configured how you like (as long as you know the key presses for the desired actions).

Next think to do was set up my Jot Script, which was simple enough, but I couldn't get it to use the pressure sensitivity. (That's a shame - a little frustrating)

Doodling in SketchBook Pro

I had a good play, that ring at the bottom right show/hides the tool sidebar. It can be moved about, and does a good job to preserve as much screen as possible. I'm not sure if the set of tools can be altered, but that's something to explore another day.

In summary, all I've done so far is mess about and play, not tried anything too serious. It's not quite the same experience as my Bamboo. It's a little too slippery because of the metal tip on glass screen, but hopefully it'll prove useful and tide me over until I buy some better hardware.

My aliens

Being away from home I'm unable to scan too, so resorting to the camera. That bit was easy, but getting the pictures from the phone onto this blog wasn't easy. Gave up in the end and sent them from my phone to laptop (don't get me started on how messy that is!)

The first one was my original idea, just eyes on stalks and not much else. I also like 'admiral akbar' with a helmet full of water. I like the big head, little body idea too.

Now I've started, I've more ideas. But I think it's true, it has to be a stereotypical alien in order to be recognisable as an alien.