PS. This cartoon was a bit delayed in getting out there, sorry! The gorgeous weather this weekend made it hard to sit down at a computer. On an unrelated note, I added a page with a couple of art pieces to the blog. You can see it here. 🙂
P.S. Ok, ok.. so I realize daylight savings was last week, but maybe this is still in keeping with the theme of it throwing off all life as one knows it. Also, I left the sketch on lined paper, thinking that if Savage Chickens can publish on post-it notes, why not… That said, I won’t be doing that again anytime soon, as the resolution didn’t work out so well. Whoops.
P.S. This week’s cartoon was inspired by a visit to the art treasures at the Royal Ontario Museum. A simultaneously inspiring and humbling experience. 🙂
This piece was published in the Camus issue of Philosophy Now.
Bonus for S&F followers! The Easter Egg in the strip (where easter egg refers to the gamer term for a hidden message or joke) is that the song they are singing at the end is the refrain for.. click here to find out! 🙂
This cartoon was published in the August issue of Philosophy Now. This issue focused on how we define the idea of ‘self’, which was an interesting question to think about.
So, how would you define self? 🙂
So, a friend had asked me about the process involved with creating a graphic novel/illustrated book/whatever you would like to call it. As I’ve been in the midst of such a project with a deadline to present some work to the Toronto Writer’s Cooperative tonight, I thought this week’s post could be about that very thing!
First, I draw out the story in thumbnail format. This part is the most fun, as you can just get creative with the story and yet not invest too much time.
The size, style, degree of ‘finish’ of thumbnails can be anything you like. For me, I prefer to work on 8.5 x 11 and roughly to the same size and layout as how I see the end product looking.
After drawing out and settling on a certain direction for the overall story, I then “pin it down” – which basically means converting the thumbnailed pages into something more closely resembling a finished product. I try to leave this part until the end in order to ensure that the overall story is relatively complete and I’m satisfied that the pages that are produced will actually be used. This is pretty important given the amount of time a page can take to properly finish.
To finish a page, I first draw out all the panel sizes and shapes for each page. The ruler (and eraser) is critical.
Next I draw in the panels with pencils.. choose word balloon placement.. add text… and then once that is done, go over all of it with ink. There’s many different ways to add ink to a page. Some people ‘ink’ directly in the computer, others are master inkers using sable brush and the like. I prefer the luddite route whereby I do as much as I can by hand and some extremely basic inking using a micron pen, and then I scan it into the computer and clean it up, add colour, etc. (if you’re curious, an example of a finished page can be seen in a prior post).
Now, I should say that this process takes a LONG time, at least 3/4 to a full day per page depending on the detail – and for people that ink professionally I’m sure it could take even longer. And that’s not even including the time spent cleaning it up on the computer and colouring (another post topic)!
I don’t know any other medium which takes hours just to tell one little joke, so you really gotta love it. So there you have it.. the secret sauce.
P.S. Simon looks crosser than I meant in the panel above. There was a really loud woman talking near me when I was drawing this.
So.. some time ago, I vaguely threatened a longer Simon & Finn story.. As (a) I like to make good on threats, and (b) there’s a cover page theme going since last week, here’s the cover underway from this particular project – it’s a different track from the weekly cartoon commentary as the longer story takes place in a strange new world.
A few might recognize a nod to one or two childhood heroes in the cover design to date (hint: plus fours).
Still a long way to go before the finished project! 🙂
So, instead of a cartoon for this week I thought I would show a couple pages from an illustration/writing project I’m working on. It’s very much a work in progress and learning Photoshop has been the bane of my existence lately, but small steps I suppose.
Cover page in progress below…
This next page is later on in the story, after many curious things happen (those strange white stump things in the lower panels are supposed to be trees, but I haven’t fixed that part yet).
simonandfinn 