Tuesday Tutorial: Make it dirty!

(This is my first of what will eventually be a regular weekly feature: the Tuesday Tutorial. Because of my aforementioned storyboard job, I can't guarantee I'll be able to make weekly updates in the near future, but I will try my best.)

When you're working with photographs, adding new elements or combining pieces of other images, one important rule to follow is to make it dirty! Photos are never perfectly clean and precise, the way computer-rendered images are, and so it's important to give them the same imperfections as the photo, so they'll blend in seamlessly. We'll follow a rather silly example I've put together to (hopefully) demonstrate what I'm talking about.

1. Add the Additional Element. For this example, I'm starting with a photo of Minnie, after she got her first and so far only bath, above. I'm going to draw a simple cone paper hat onto her, and try to make it look real.

Here is a close-up of the image of Minnie with a simple cone drawn on her head in Photoshop. Though I did a fine job masking out her hair and shading the hat, it still doesn't quite fit in the image. (You may need to click on these images to see the larger versions.)

2. Add Noise to Additional Element. Every photograph -- and this includes photos of paintings and artwork, of course -- has some degree of graininess. This graininess runs throughout the image, and if your additional element doesn't have it, it will stand out.

I went to Photoshop's Filter menu, and to Noise. I added 2% noise to the hat. You'll need to look at the photo up close to see that the amount of noise you're giving matches it.

Keep in mind, it's important to make the hat on a separate layer, and to keep it on the separate layer, throughout this process.

3. Add Blur to Element. Every photograph -- even the world's best photograph -- is out of focus, to some extent. It may be the tiniest amount, but there's liable to be some bit of blur to the image. You need to blur your new image element to match the surrounding objects.

Note that in many photos, the amount of blur will vary from the foreground to background, so the right amount of added blur can help pinpoint the perceived depth of your new element.

I went up to the Filter menu again, went to Blur, and selected Gaussian Blur. I then gave the hat a small amount of blur -- just 0.7 pixels.

4. Do Whatever Else It Takes. As you can see from the finished piece, below, Noise and Blur were all it took for the texture of the image to match the photo. There may be additional steps depending on the photo -- if the image in the photo moved, and has a directional blur, adding Motion Blur may be needed. Sometimes lightening the opacity of the picture -- say, to 95% or so -- will allow background textures to show through. This usually ony works if the background behind it is fairly plain, without detailed objects. You also, of course, will need to make sure the colors work well too. But these first two steps -- blur and noise -- will get you on your way.

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie!

The other day Marty and Minnie were tugging on the same stick. It was really cute, so we took a few pictures.

I used one of those pictures as reference for this drawing. I decided to do another woodcut technique, like I did back in August. Since the technique requires that the image be drawn in negative, then reversed digitally, it's difficult to visualize as I'm drawing -- every black line I drawn in ink will become a white line, and wherever the white paper is left will be black. So it's difficult to gauge exactly how it'll look. That presents a challenge, but also makes the project fun -- the end result is always a surprise.

I did retouch the image a little, around the dogs' eyes and some of the outlines. But overall, it turned out as I expected.

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Introducing Monday Morning Minnie!

Now that she's been with us a week, and begun to settle in here (?) It's time to give Minnie her formal introduction. Notice the black coat and those piercing orange eyes! Okay, you can't tell they're orange from a black-and-white sketch, but I was able to capture the piercing part. And those ears that tuck down onto her head -- sometimes you can't see them at all, and then she really looks odd.

I mentioned last week that Marty's first reaction to her was a bit -- well, aggressive. Well now they get on like a house on fire! They jump on each other like Grecko-Roman wrestlers, trying to get underneath each other and flip, trying to pin each other down. Their play is so fierce it's frightening -- Minnie will bite on Marty's face and pull on it, and Marty will bite Minnie's ears -- but it's all in fun. The tails keep wagging, and moments later when they're tired out, they'll just fall asleep next to each other. Crazy.

This sketch was done in pencil, then scanned and the tones added digitally. When I augment a sketch like this, I like to keep it minimal. There's a danger of the digital effects taking over, and it's easy to go overboard, but I want the piece to still feel like a sketch.

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How I Make A Comic Strip

Welcome to my summary of putting together a comic strip. Or at least, my way of putting together a comic strip. This isn't going to be "how to draw" (I'm sure I'll cover something along those lines before too long) so much as it is "how to set up to draw."

Everyone needs a system for putting together a comic strip. Drawing comics is as much a job as it is a calling -- and on days when you don't really hear that calling, it's still a job. And for most cartoonists, it's not a very good paying job. So it's essential that you have a system in place, a streamlined and standardized way of going about the task. I draw seven strips for Annie a week -- six dailies plus the color Sunday strip -- and I need to get that work done quickly and get it out the door by deadline, and still leave time for other freelance work, my webcomic Jazz Age (I'm on hiatus right now, but it's usually a full-color strip written and drawn every week) and, if I'm lucky, my family. I don't want to waste any time here. I need to get the boring stuff out of the way, to give me the most time actually drawing, and get it all done fast.

The system I show won't work for everyone. It may not even work for anyone, except that it works for me. Other comics artists use other systems -- maybe some of them will comment here on theirs -- but this is the one that has evolved for me. Even if none of this is applicable to you, young apprentice, I hope you at least come away with an appreciation for the need for a system.

The process begins with the script, which is written by Jay Maeder and gets to me from my editor, Tracy Clark. the script tells me who's doing what, who says what and what is being shown in each panel. Since we've worked together for some time now -- just over three years -- Jay and I have a pretty good understanding of what each other wants and expects, so his scripts are not very detailed. He trusts me to know the right angles to show things in, and to make the new characters interesting and appropriate.

After reading through the script, I go to my layout worksheet. This is a worksheet I made up that gives me little boxes, scaled-down versions of the individual strips, and lets me sketch out the six dailies on one page. These layouts are loose and sketchy -- since I'm the only one who needs to refer to them and since I'll be drawing the final art in a day or so, I don't need to go into much detail -- I'll remember what I had in mind. The most important aspect of the layouts is to show roughly where all the important elements are.

The next step surprises some people. I do the final lettering. Years ago I made the best investment of a couple hundred hours I could ever have made -- I created a digital version of my own hand lettering, in Fontographer. And I made alternative versions of most of the letters, which you can access by hitting OPTION with the letter, so double letters don't look quite so obvious. I also made up a library of word balloons in Quark -- which I've since transferred to InDesign -- that I can put the lettering into, and which are resizable and adaptable to any need. Using the layouts as a guide, and an InDesign template that has the strip dimensions preformatted, I create the panel sizes and add the lettering balloons, copying and pasting the dialogue directly from the script emailed to me by Tracy.

Why do I do the lettering first? After years of frustration with trying to make lettering balloons fit a tight space because I underestimated it when I drew the panel, or having to cover up some really nice background art I drew with a balloon, I realized that the artwork was more adaptable than the lettering. It's easier, in other words, to make a figure, or a face, a little bigger or smaller in the panel to fit the space after the balloons are put in than to make the balloon bigger or smaller to fit the space after the artwork is put in. A figure, or a face, can be partially cut off and still work -- words are rarely that flexible.

Once the lettering and layouts are completed, I print them out on good card stock. I used to pay a small fortune to buy Bristol board pads, cut them down to size and throw away the extras -- they never did learn to make those pads 11 x 17" -- and then start doing the lettering by hand. Now, I can buy 11 x 17" card stock and print out the lettering, all ready to go, for a lot less! Even before I got my large printer, and had to email the InDesign files to a printer to output onto the card stock, it was still cheaper than buying the Bristol board. And it works just as well for drawing on. Nearly. It's not quite as thick, so it can warp if you lean and sweat on it too much. Oh well -- everything's a trade-off.

So now, with the lettering and panel borders printed on the card stock -- I put two dailies on one 11 x 17" sheet, or half of a Sunday strip -- I'm ready to get down and draw. Which, as I mentioned, I'll have to cover another time.

With the line art all done, I scan the artwork. Until I invest in an 11 x 17" scanner, I have to make two scans of each page and splice them together. Then I clean up the scans, and send the strips to the editor for approval. Ta-daah!

For the Sunday strips, after I scan the artwork, I create a color guide for the print house, which they use to put together the final color files for the newspapers. That'll also be another post.

So there you have it. My system. My regular process for breaking down a very large job into bite-size pieces and taking care of them in order. Like I said, it may not work for others, but it works for me. Every week. Now I feel tired.

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Monday Morning Marty -- 7/16/07

Here's the Monday Morning Marty for this week -- and instead of the usual pencil sketch or line drawing, I went with a different approach, and digitally altered a photo of Marty into a painting look. I still plan to have the Monday Morning Marty series be predominantly sketches, drawings and maybe the occasional real painting, but digital illustration is legitimate, too. So today you get a little variety.

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ANOTHER Great Vintage Illustration -- and One of Mine

I know, I know -- another link to Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog. Maybe you should all just subscribe to them instead. (Or better yet, subscribe to us both!) But I can't get enough of these beautiful illustrations. And this first picture -- by Mead Schaeffer for The Black Buccaneer (1920) was just too gorgeous for me not to pass along. And it's by no means the only amazing painting that Door Tree (what can I do -- that's what he calls himself) just posted tonight.

I'm going to have to try and recreate this style digitally. I've done some acrylic painting in this vein, though nothing close to this kind of quality. But I've done some digital work for a real estate developer where I took photographs and altered them in Photoshop to look like paintings around this vintage. (See second picture.) I think I could push that style further and maybe do something in this spirit.

Of course, even if I could recreate the brushwork and the texture of these classic illustrations, that'll still leave the composition, lighting, pace, mood, period detail -- there will be loads of challenges in trying to match the impact and the flavor of these amazing paintings.

Sounds like fun, huh?

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Baldo Artist Draws on YouTube -- and I Open My Big Mouth!

The Daily Blogger has a link to a YouTube video of Baldo artist Carlos Castellanos drawing his character. Well, when I say drawing... He's really just doing the inking, which he does digitally. It's a nice video, but ever since I was a kid, whenever I hear about someone showing how they draw something, I want them to reveal everything. I want to discern all the secrets of cartooning and storytelling and illustration, and all I get is to see someone drawing a picture.

It's a standard no one could live up to. And this wasn't supposed to be a tutorial -- which Carlos himself tells me in his response to my curmudgeonly post. Me and my big mouth, I had to say that I wanted to see the whole creative process in this quick little video.

So now that I've said that, and Carlos so graciously turned the tables on me, now it's on me to produce a video of my own -- one that shows the entire creative process. Are you kidding me? I have to live up to my own standards? What have I gotten myself into?

Well, it's going to be a while, since I don't even have a video camera, and I'm going to be moving cross-country in two weeks, but once we get settled in, and I find a camera, and I figure out how to do this...

...I'll have that video.

In the meantime, some really great stuff happened from all this. I got to communicate with Carlos, who said he liked my work -- cool! This whole blogging thing is already paying off!

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