Cartooning Tip-Bits: Drafting your Comic Strips

These extracts are taken from The Big Book of Cartooning. Once again Bruce Blitz had demonstrated how he pencil and ink his comic strip in a few simple steps. Although not everyone may do the same way as he did, it is still a good practice to have a basic structure to begin with.

Cartooning Tip-Bits: Speech Bubbles & Lettering

The following extracts are taken from The Big Book of Cartooning written by Bruce Blitz. There are many different types of speech bubbles (or balloon) and some evoked emotion. What you see are just some common examples and you can redesign the shape of your speech bubbles provided the readers understand what you trying to convey. Remember the readers can't hear (physical sound) what your characters are talking and the only clue that reflects the charcter's emotion or state of mind is the speech bubble and your selected text.

Cartooning Tip-Bits: Bruce Blitz's The Big Book of Cartooning

These extracts are taken from The Big Book of Cartooning, written by Bruce Blitz. His book can be purchased from Amazon and inside contains a lot of practical cartooning skill and knowledge. Most beginner may not see the link (or even interested) between the actual paper size we worked on and the scaled down size (printed version) until we decided to publish our comic strips. Think of it this way, it is better to draw big and reduced in scale according to the format of your book or paper.

Cartooning Tip-Bits: Drawing a representation of myself

Who do you want to become? What do you want people to see in you? How are you going to do it? The answer may lies in these illustrations: Caricature - Cartoon - Manga.

 

The World We Never Knew Existed (Day 8)

This two comic strips was done in 1997-98 as part of a mixed medium experimental artwork. The top strip portray the inside of Raffles City which during that time had this cool fountain that 'shoot' out water in a very precised manner. The bottom strip was about an inferno and explosion in a built up area. The two artworks were designed like a film strip in a movie.

The World We Never Knew Existed (Day 7)

Smart phone is a high-tech device that most people will consider it to be a common item in today's society. Not only is it a need but also a must have commodity if you want to remain in the present era. It is common to link working adults having equipped with a smart phone because of work, but to see very young children owning and using one seems to make me ponder whether they need such a sophisticated device. It wouldn't be surprising if the day may comes that young children will pilot a plane or even a spacecraft to outer space since they are already being exposed to satellite technology since they are born. That is the world we may live long enough to witness whether it will exist at all!

The World We Never Knew Existed (Day 6)

I was on the train platform today waiting to go to a student's house to give lesson in drawing when I received a message from her mum, "can we cancel art lesson today as xxxx is still still sleeping..." It was 7.30am in the morning and the lesson starts at 8.30am. I wonder how many times have I entertained situation like this in my teaching career. Student sleeping...student not yet home...student  came when class ended...student did not inform teacher when they not coming...parent's changed schedule but forgot to inform teacher...art class in school cancelled due to "unforeseen" event...art class in school delayed and shortened because form teacher need more time to deliver their lesson. I can understand that a "change in plan" do happens once a while when either party could not make it.  Are we able to have total control of situation like this? Definitely a YES!! Perhaps it is time for us to give lesson in front of a computer screen:)

The World We Never Knew Existed (Day 5)

Carl, which is my next most drawn character, is created the same time as Emily. Carl is seen as a childhood friend of Emily, a companion of shared passion, a love interest or even as a complement to Emily's gentle personality. In most of the drawing in my diary, I depicted Carl as someone who likes freedom, value friendship, someone who cherishes enjoyment, silly in sport, poor in math but score in imagination. Carl can be easily fired up when emotion is stirred, and usually succeed in tasks only with encouragement and helps from buddies. He shared the same passion as Emily which is painting, and that is the only activity  he does not need help from anyone. Carl enjoy personating celebrity and usually ends in total embarassment. "I am who I am", and that is his belief!

The World We Never Knew Existed (day 4)

How is it feel like to be a synaesthesia seeing your surrounding with splashes of colour? These artworks are done in the year 2001. It expresses a marriage between comics and painting, showing Emily's perception of her world that only herself knew. The artworks were done using a variety of medium such as soft pastel, charcoal powder, acrylic paint, pen, ink and paper on canvas board.

The World We Never Knew Existed (day 3)

Emily herself is a synaesthesia, meaning she can see sound as colours and shapes. However what she sees are more than that and absolutely strange and weird. These comic strips (year 2004) reflect the side of her world. It begins with her checking her eyesight and colour test to seeing people turning into animals. The dialogue was omitted so that you can better imagine yourself in the shoe of a synaesthesia.

The World We Never Knew Existed (day 2)

Emily is my first cartoon character that have been created in 1997. She is one of my most drawn figure for the past 15 years and also appeared the most in my ads for my cartooning courses. Emily's trademark features are her big eyes and hair fringe which set herself apart  from the rest of the characters. Her appearance remains young and cute but have been 'matured' over these years. Perhaps this is an evolution of my drawing style, but most likely my thinking also matured when I get older. Most of my drawing was done using fountain pen with a few exception of using brush pen to fill in the dark tones in the background. These are a few of the latest drawings in my archive.

The World We Never Knew Existed (day 1)

"The World We Never Knew Existed", the idea comes from the fact that we all know is right in front of us, but did not really look closely, embrace it or believe what that existed in our mind - an imaginary world with imaginary characters that mirror the real life that we live. The question of existent, does the realistic world we are so familiar with has all the answer we want? If not, what do we really want to see, want or experience in this existed world?