Digital Caricatures - Note to self...

Keep it simple stupid.  Concentrate on the drawing and line art, then colour simply - just use airbrush to create light and shadow.

My new cartooning setup part 2 - Caricaturing....

As you may well have noticed, there's been a distinct lack of cartoons recently - this is because I've been concentrating on caricaturing, something that I've been interested in, but not fully committed too - until now.  The thing is, I'm out of humour lately.  I can't come up with a funny line for toffee, and it's gotten so frustrating that I decided to concentrate on my caricature work.  The upshot of all this is that my caricaturing skills have improved, and it's no small conincidence that's it's down to my new setup.

When I caricature, I do it in pencil, as I'm comfortable with it, and it gives me the results I like.

 

Once that's complete, I put the drawing onto my iPad to colour.  For caricatures, I use Procreate, rather than Pen & Ink as it gives me better results...

 

And this is the end result.  So far, I've done 3 using this method, and I'm happy with all of them so far...

 

If anyone reading this wants their own caricature, you can reach me at the Caricatoons website...

 

My new cartooning setup - iPads Rule!

It's been a while since my last post - much has happened.  I've been through a 25th anniversary, various domestic issues and a heavy workload, but finally, I am happy to report that I'm moving over to the dark side - yes chaps, I've started to go "Apple".

I bought my wife and I an iPad Air each recently, and I thought "How good would this thing be for cartooning?"  Well, after a few false starts, here is my current cartooning kit (minus the iPad)...

At the top is a Wacom Creative Stylus - this monster of a package is well made, pressure sensitive, and feels lovely in the hand - but it's crap.  The stylus feels lovely, but it's far too thick to see what you're doing, and that's really frustrating.  I got so annoyed, I started looking for another stylus - and found the GoSmart 300 Stylus (the little rocket ship thing bottom left!).  This has a tip that looks like a wire hoop...

This allows you to see what's under the tip - great for detail work, and the stylus is solid aluminium!  It may not be pressure sensitive, but so far, I'm not finding that a problem.

The final trial was which software to use on the iPad.  I was given lots of recommendations, and it's a good thing that most of these apps are cheap, because you can soon waste money - however, I did find an app that let me work the way I wanted to work - ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pen & Ink

Pen & Ink is essentialy a Moleskin journal & full art set in one neat package.  It has full layer support, variable size pages and runs really quickly, but I really love it's inking engine.  When I ink using a pen, I tend to ink the same way I sketch - small short lines, that make up one whole line.  Pen and ink feels like I'm really using my pen again - and I love it.  In fact, I did this picture the other day...

This is a quick piccie of Sir Samuel Vimes, from the Terry Pratchett "Discworld" series, but using Sam Neill (of Jurassic Park fame) as the base.  All done in Pen and Ink, with the GoSmart stylus.  Neat eh?

In summary, I really love this setup.  it's quick, easy and gives great results.  It might not work for everyone, but at the moment, it's working for me...