Chewing Pencils

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 image as a single, flat sheet of paper, and added colour by using a combination of the paint brush and fill tools.

In part 3, I used a much better method by using layers and objects to create an image that was not only more interesting, but more flexible as well.

It is the purpose of this final post to compare the two ‘finished’ products and the techniques I used to create them. The first image below is the cartoon constructed in part 2.

It’s ok, but not something I particulalry like. The composition is a bit out and the whole thing is, to be brutally honest, visually boring. However, because of the limitation of viewing this piece as a single piece of paper, there’s not much I can do other than scrub it out and start again. This denies nearly all the power and benefits of using your computer to create cartoons, so apart from the most basic of images, this is a technique I avoid.

Depending on where you live, the word “dilemma” has also been spelt incorrectly. As the word is on a white background, erasing it and re-typing it isn’t an issue. But if the word appeared over a gradient fill or some detailed linework, using this method means that everything underneath it would also disappear when the word was erased. This is nothing but frustrating - and enough to bring tears if you’ve been working at it for ages!

The screen shot below highlights the problem visually. On the very right hand side I’ve circled the list of objects in the objects dialogue box (your software may call them layers - same thing). There is just one, solitary layer called ‘background’. Even though it was quick to produce, any future editing will be tedious, as much care will need to be taken not to compromise line work or colour.

The cartoon produced in part 3 is, in my opinion anyway, far better. The composition is more balanced because I was able to move the different parts of the cartoon around. This is one advantage of using layer/objects. The image is not a single piece of digital paper, but rather multiple pieces of transparent, digital paper, stacked on top of each other. When you change the information on one layer, the others are left untouched.

I was able to experiment wth different sizes and colours on the background layer, and also toyed with the idea of putting some stage curtains in the white elipse. All of this experimentation I could do without fear of accidentally deleting or drawing over any of the other elements of the picture. The highlights and shadows were easily added as the black outline was in a separate layer - I didn’t have to be too careful about going ‘over the lines’.

The screen shot below again demonstrates the concept of layers visually. Where I have circled on the right hand side, you can see the eight layers used in this cartoon. Because I save my work in the native format of my software, the layers/objects remain intact in the saved file. I can easily re-open the file down the track and change the colour of the guy’s shirt or add a different background or any other change, without compromising the rest of the image. When working with clients, this flexibility is very important. It allows rapid changes to be made to cartoons and avoids having to redraw things from scratch.

Admittedly, this cartoon is pretty simple. There’s not a lot of detail and most of it could be changed if it were a singel layer anyway. Cartoons with more detail, like this cartoon for instance, would be a nightmare to edit if it used only one layer. Any change would require extremely careful erasing and redrawing - I just don’t have the time or patience. Using layers, I don’t need too!

The only step now is to display the image on my website and try to sell it to a client somewhere! But that’s a topic for another tutorial… 

I hope this has helped stimulate some ideas on how you can produce cartoons using your pencil and computer, and produce better quality ones in the process. If there are any steps in this tutorial that have been unclear, feel free to ask some questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.

In the mean time, draw well!