Chewing Pencils

I stumbled upon this little piece of software purely by accident. It seems like a possible alternative to PainterIX - and it’s FREE!
ArtRage2 is it’s name, by Ambient Design. Quoting from the website:
“Each of the tools in ArtRage is designed to work like its real world counterpart (minus the smell of paint thinners, and that piece […]

If you’ve just stumbled upon Chewing Pencils, this post forms the fourth and final installment of a tutorial on creating cartoons with both traditional media and your computer.
In part 1, I outlined the technique I used to draw my image, scan it in and clean it up ready for colouring.
In part 2, I treated the […]

My tutorial on “Creating Great Cartoons with your Pencil and Computer” started it’s life as part of the group writing project over at ProBlogger. Over 300 people from around the world took part in the project and the results are amazing.
While not strictly cartoon related, there are some wonderful “How to” posts in the list. […]

Back in part 1 of this tutorial outlined the process I use to take a cartoon image from paper to digital form using my scanner. I also showed how to clean up the image, making the blacks as black as possible without loosing the whiteness of the whites - leaving the image ready for some […]

A little while ago I wrote this post on the importance of keeping a balance between family life and freelancing. I still stand by everything I wrote then, but today Greg Turra left a comment that says it better than I ever could.
I thought it was worth it’s own post:
It is all too eerily familiar to […]

In part 1 of this tutorial, I outlined two approaches to producing a cartoon image using a mix of traditional media and a computer. I then went on to describe the tools and technique I used to produce, scan and clean up an image ready for some more heavy duty digital manipulation.
In this second installment, I will take the […]

Over the last ten years, my computer has become the chief tool I use for producing my cartoons and illustrations. My first few paying jobs were done before I owned a computer and were finished the ‘old fashioned’ way - by drawing a pencil draft on paper, inking with a marker pen or brush, colouring […]

Back in this post, I shared some of my thoughts on preparing a folio of your work for presentation to potential clients. It formed part of my Top Ten Tips for Becoming a Professional series and has since been one of the most visited posts on Chewing Pencils.
I’ve recently been discussing with a colleague how […]

When I was a kid in school, I had a friend that read every edition of Mad magazine, and insisted that I did too. I got hooked pretty quickly, but was never allowed to get my own copy unless we were away on holidays and my parents wanted something to keep me quiet in the […]

I’ve just returned from five days in country Victoria, visiting family and celebrating my Father-in-law’s 60th. It was a full five days, but there’s something about life on the farm that makes suburbia seem far too busy…
Anyway, while I was away, two well known Australian people were killed. Steve Irwin (left) was stabbed in the […]