Re: All my own shirk......

[cartunes-r-us]

here's another cartoon of my characters: this was planned as an avatar for on here, but too much detail was lost; I have another avatar design, however!;

[boytrotters]

Love it! Looks so good that it could be its own black and white animated show on the telly!

[cartunes-r-us]

THANKS very much, boytrotters......a lot of people have said that my characters look suitable for animation.

Although I never especially set out to do this, I did try and make my characters 'classic' and even old-fashioned looking......but if they have potential for animation, all the better still.

[cartunes-r-us]

If you have any interest in my drawing-style, keep watching this thread, readers...........here's a 'glamrock' variation I did of my BABY BOOMER characters for another forum:

[cartunes-r-us]

OK, ---slightly late-------in fact, VERY LATE! -----this is my Valentines' Day Special' to promote my characters:

[Simon Lake]

Your drawings have a very definitive style and are fairly reminiscent of Terry Bave, if you don't mind me saying. http://lambiek.net/artists/b/bave_terry.htm
I love the attention to detail and the confident economy of line. You've obviously worked hard at defining an instantly recognizable style. This type of beefy illustration would really appeal to the kids' market. Have you ever submitted any stuff to crossword publications? (mazes/ spot the difference etc). It really looks like you enjoy doing these as well and it reflects in the artwork. That's a passion I am personally trying to rekindle as drawing has become more of a chore for me as of late.

[cartunes-r-us]

Thanks for your observations, Simon, yes I am a big UK comics fan, and I am well aware of who IPC stalwart Terry Bave is. My style is influenced by UK comics and vintage cartoon animation, and thanks for your welcome suggestion that seems to say I have developed my own style, which is what I have set out to do......


I am trying to get my characters into a syndicated comic-strip, and I will be testing these waters very soon, however this could take ages to get off the ground [if ever, it is of course a notoriously difficult market] and in the meantime any cartoon-related work would be welcome, which would include puzzles, etc......like yourself, I am half cartoonist and half gag-writer, and good that my enthusiasm seems to show through in my cartoons

Some completed strips should finally be posted on this thread next week.

[cartunes-r-us]

in the meantime, here's more shameless plugging:

[Leah-Admin]

Your style reminds me of the early animated cartoons so yes they'd definately work well animated.

I have some very inexpensive software that allows you to create animations really quickly and easily. If you had a series of pics I could create an animation for you to see how it looks I've only had one go at this so far, but it doesn't look complicated, even for a technophobe like me!

[Simon Lake]

Nice work Cartunes! Thanks for showing us the "before and after" shots. I was actually going to initiate a thread on this very vain, so I might as well carry it on here. We are all interested to know how other artists achieve their finished results, so I thought I'd share mine with you.
This is a job I started yesterday for a client who has an order of tee shirts for a Serbian Agent (Hence the Kudu's shoes) for his World Cup 2010 accommodation. I've included everything he gave in the brief (which was very, erm....brief). He originally asked me to come up with a cartoon for a Kudu (a South African antelope) and he was thrilled with this one. Anyway, basic pencil on A3. Scan in the top and bottom then reduce them both to 80%. New document....copy and paste both halves onto it, thus making the whole drawing A4. Line the two halves up nicely and flatten the image. Note how I draw with all the lines closed so that it is easy to make fills in photoshop. Ive now got a backup of my drawing so I'm not too scared to attack it with my black pen.

[Simon Lake]

Right, time to ink out the outline. I go through black pens like god knows what. This is done with a brand new WH Smith overhead transparency pen. This is an important client. My very first one lol! I scan it again and go thru' the same procedure. The reason why I do this is because I'm not taking any chances and I don't want to have to start all over again if I 'eff up the inking. I can also approach it with confidence, and don't get "stage- struck" at the final hurdle, which is normally the case. A bit of manipulation with the lasso tool and I can copy the microlite (I don't like the way it is) and paste it back in a better position. This works better than tippex. I think I may reduce the size of it later as well. I've also selected the entire image with the magic wand tool and made the background white, hiding a multitude of sins.

[Simon Lake]

Now for the fun part! I Make another coffee and sit back. I created the background flag thing in a new document with three rectangles and made the lightness very low and applied a filter called "motion blur". Once again, because there are no gaps in the outline, I can select the entire background of my original document and "inverse selection", thus allowing me to superimpose the entire cartoon over the faded background of the Serbian flag, I applied all the colour to my satisfaction, careful not to use any too- strong or dark one's. The Serbian football shirt requires a bit of extra attention to get it just right. I copied the micro-lite to another document and reduced the size and pasted it back. I also tarted up the "yard of ale" with typical photoshop wizardry. The backdrops are just some of the things being offered by the package. I couldn't put all of them in there or else it would all look a bit too busy. Total time spent.... 12 hours. I'll keep you posted about the progress of the contract. Hey guys, look...I'm a hog!!!!

[cartunes-r-us]

WOW: good to see this evolution Simon, It's gags in strip form I usually do, so I write ideas usually after I get up in the morning [as LEAH says, it's best to keep a paper and pen handy] : as you guys doubtless know, an idea can strike in a millisecond.........some need to be worked on and strengthened later, however this morning I had the theme of KING KONG and the Statue of Liberty both celebrating [this strip is meant for the US market] which is certainly worthwhile humour-wise.....I'll see if I can add on a series of roughs-pencils-inking regarding this gag like Simon has kindly demonstrated here.


PS; your watermark idea is a winner, Simon: I've only just got my characters copyrighted.

[cartunes-r-us]

How many drawings would you need for a basic computer-animation, Leah?

an animated signature would help make my stuff stand out......

[Simon Lake]

You mean an animated avatar for your avatar, Cartunes? Right, I was at a loss for somat to do today, so I'll do a bit of homework on that. I've been meaning to try that out.