Hola Family, Friends and those I haven’t met yet . . .
Today’s cartoon took a while for me to figure out how to best draw Melvin walking.
I did over 12 sketches and full drawings trying all different ways to make him appear to walk across the page. It’s a challenge dealing with 8-legged characters, for sure, and usually I have them standing or dangling from a thread. (When I did the party scene with the 4 spiders, I had 32 legs to deal with.) I like making the spiders hold things, like coffee cups or books, which reduces the number of legs to position, which I did with Melvin in this cartoon giving him things to hold. I settled on drawing Melvin as if he were walking on 2 legs (really 4 legs when you look at it) which I think makes him look more humorous.
I’m also making it a point to work on the more difficult cartoons instead of shuffling them to the back of my idea folder because they feel daunting. This was one of those.
In preparing for this cartoon I practiced drawing cups, fishing rods and scoop nets, as well as books, both open and closed.
Have a great Friday everyone!
Until mañana . . .
Bring on the Spiders!
Ian S
Florida!
P.S.
“No rulers were harmed during the making of this cartoon.”
“Let’s still be careful out there.”