Hola Night Owls & Early Birds
Tonight’s Essential Cartoon is . . .
Well, you’ll see for yourself. 😄
Part of the process has been making decisions about using borders or not using borders. I’ve mostly been drawing borders. But sometimes it looks better without them. More open space, less of a confined look which maybe lends more energy to the scene.
Most cartoonists also sketch in penciled guidelines to write in their dialog. But it does add more erasing to the process and time to measure out the lines. So I’ve come up with a technique which doesn’t require drawing guidelines.
I use another 9 X 12 Bristol board that matches the exact size of my cartoon board. I put the guide-board on top, lining up all the sides so they sit perfectly on top of each other. I then slide the top guide-board down along the cartoon board to the area I want to write in my dialog, keeping the vertical edges lined up. Now, the top horizontal edge of my guide-board becomes my straight edge guide line. I then pencil in my dialog along this horizontal edge, and then slide the top guide-board down about a letter’s length to write my 2nd line of dialog. And so-on until all the lines of lettering have been penciled in. To help keep the edges of the 2 white boards from blending in with each other, I black sharpie the 4 edges of the guide-board — like a black frame.
It’s not perfect, but I’m learning how to make my line spaces by eye, which I think is pretty cool.
I hope that was interesting.
Until mañana . . .
Humor abounds.
Ian S.
Salinas!
P.S.
“No rulers were harmed during the making of this cartoon.”
“Let’s still be careful out there.”