All my own shirk......

[cartunes-r-us]

hiya, folks.....I've been planning my own strip for ages now, and it's great to have total control over something......it was admittedly difficult starting off something 'brand new', but now I'm used to it, I won't go back to 'ghosting' established stuff, coz the freedom in creating your own stuff is just exhilirating.

Bad points: this is meant for daily newspaper format, and the drawings have to be tiny.......some subjects are tricky, but it's great for learning composition, etc.

The above illustration is one of a series of 'trailers' I add as signatures to another site.


About 500 finished strips exist, and I'm literally 2 hours away from finishing them.......hope to put in some examples of finished strips soon.


Good luck with the site.

An airbrush is very messy, Simon, as you've probably discovered. The first time for me was a disaster, but over a couple of weeks I picked up the basics: I only use it for doing backgrounds: complex character rendering would take an eternity.

However, up until photoshop, the airbrush was the only real way to get 'photorealism' into cartoons, and it stretches back a long way in cartoon imagery: it appears in a lot of Tom & Jerry background stills, for example, which explains the incredible sense of depth and realism in some of the settings.


I do reccomend pursuing with an airbrush, though: I promise it will 'click' regarding how to use it in a fairly short time.

I only shade digitally now, though I am now adding shadow via the line and grid method manually to good effect. It makes a big difference, seeing objects grounded and what not.

Your cartoons show good movement Rob. I am studying them closely

I'm taking this cartooning business very seriously now so I am paying close attention to aspects that I feel make an image pop, give it humour, depth, passion and so on. I have a big supply of Beanos and Dandys. Good excuse to have a read. What a magical way to earn a living!!

I love it.

I'm taking this cartooning business very seriously now.

So you should too. It's a very serious business and you are showing the most amazing potential as of late. We all agreed on that one? Rob understands about the Range of Motion principle Leah. I wanted to say that your fights in the Car Park were very stiff. I'm chuffed that he's accepted them and all that but you could benefit in the future by studying body language like Tom and Jerry. I have some extracts on this from the Academy that I will dig out.

Last edited by Simon Lake on Sat 17 Jul - 16:34; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Just being more explicit thats all)

I'm taking this cartooning business very seriously now.

So you should too. It's a very serious business and you are showing the most amazing potential as of late. We all agreed on that one? Rob understands about the Range of Motion principle Leah. I wanted to say that your fights in the Car Park were very stiff. I'm chuffed that he's accepted them and all that but you could benefit in the future by studying body language like Tom and Jerry. I have some extracts on this from the Academy that I will dig out.

Yes I agree a 100%!!!

It didn't even occur to me at that time, but looking at Robs toons I became more aware of it. I didn't refer to my Beanos re the VIZ comic strip, because VIZ style is so very different. I just got the image in my head of how it should look and then started drawing. But definitely movement is my next mission...that and of course wising up re these technical sizing matters and wot not.

Leah/Simon/anyone else interested: I reckon the most important part of cartooning is the 'feeling' [it's like a spirit] that goes into the rough pencil sketches....this is the real creative stuff, in my view. [I'ts also the most enjyable, and I don't mind doing it, even if I'm not being paid at the mo'.]

Polished inking and cool colour are the icing on the cake, but effective character poses---and expression, whether it's facial or body language------ are what it's all about in my view. Just practice on cheapo paper, after you get the hang of it you can belt these babies out in seconds.

Here's the latest:

The intricacy never ceases to astound me! Thanks for keeping us up to speed Rob!

Thanks, Simon! I always try and make the cartoons easy to 'read' however: it should always be clear what is happening.

Lots of blank space helps a lot, and also designing the drawing so your eyes are directed to the important bits.

Money can't buy you poverty:

and this week:

As radical as ever Rob. You rock this Forum.

Love it!

thank you, kind readers!

As suggested by Simon, the results should be better if I move over to 'posh' paper: bristol board, after the awful cheapo paper I have been using up til now.......

All future entries on here should be better scans, I should have done this ages ago.


The first pencil on decent paper has already been started.

Or Saunders. Anything is better than that cheap ass copier paper. Just a simple sketch pad. It's really half the battle.

Last week's cartoons included copyrighted characters, so I chose not to put them on the site to be on the safe side.


Back onto characters created by me however.


This one is called: 'Attack of the Macy Day Balloon: