Issuu

NUMBER 3

THE PROFESSIONAL “HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS AND CARTOONING

WINTER 2002

595

IN THE U.S.A.

INKING DEMO BY DICK GIORDANO FIGURES IN ACTION BY BRET BLEVINS

A HOW-TO DEMO ON WEB COMICS BY MIKE MANLEY PRODUCT REVIEWS BY ANDE PARKS

AN INTERVIEW WITH DISNEY’S CHRIS BAILEY

DESIGN FOR COMICS AND ANIMATION BY PAUL RIVOCHE

THE PROFESSIONAL ”HOW-TO” MAGAZINE ON COMICS & CARTOONING WINTER 2002 • VOL. 1, NO. 3

Editor & Designer • Michael Manley

Publisher • John Morrow

Logo Design • John Costanza

Front Cover Illustration • Paul Rivoche Proofreaders • John Morrow & Eric Nolen-Weathington

FEATURES INKING – TECHNIQUES AN INKING DEMONSTRATION BY DICK GIORDANO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 DESIGN DESIGNING FOR COMICS AND ANIMATION PART ONE: OBSERVATION AND MEMORY BY PAUL RIVOCHE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 THE CRUSTY CRITIC PRODUCT REVIEWS BY ANDE PARKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 ANIMATION AN INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS BAILEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 WEB COMICS A DEMONSTRATION BY DRAW! EDITOR MIKE MANLEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 SKETCHBOOK DRAWINGS AND SKETCHES BY BRET BLEVINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 GREAT WEBSITES A FEW RECOMMENDATIONS ON WHAT AND WHERE TO SURF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 FIGURE DRAWING DRAWING THE FIGURE IN ACTION BY BRET BLEVINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 LETTERS COMMENTS FROM READERS ON OUR SECOND ISSUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74

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DRAW! WINTER 2002, Vol. 1, No. 3 was produced by Action Planet Inc. and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Michael Manley, Editor, John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Address is PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082. Subscription Address: TwoMorrows Publishing, 1812 Park Dr., Raleigh, NC 27605. DRAW! and its logo are trademarks of Action Planet Inc. All contributions herein are copyright 2002 by their respective contributors. Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing accept no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. All artwork herein is copyright the year of production, its creator (if work-for-hire, the entity which contracted said artwork); the characters featured in said artwork are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners; and said artwork or other trademarked material is printed in these pages with the consent of the copyright holder and/or for journalistic, educational and historical purposes with no infringement intended or implied. Batman, Superman, Mary Marvel/Shazam, The Demon, Wild Dog, Sarge Steel, Phantom Lady, Azrael, Speedy, Supergirl, Jonni Thunder, Kung-Fu Fighter are TM and © 2002 DC Comics • Captain America, The New Mutants, Bucky, The Human Torch, Forge, Sleepwalker are TM and © 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc. • Major Damage TM and © 2002 Chris Bailey • Dr. Direct © 2002 Brooks Instrument • Stephanie Starr © 2002 Mike Friedrich and Dick Giordano • Kim Possible, Black Pete, Hercules, Nessus, Clerks the animated series TM and © 2002 The Walt Disney Corporation • John Carter of Mars TM and © 2002 The Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate. This entire issue is © 2002 Action Planet Inc. and TwoMorrows Publishing and may not be reprinted or retransmitted without written permission of the copyright holders. Printed in Canada. FIRST PRINTING.

E-mail: mike@actionplanet.com Website: www.actionplanet.com Snail mail: PO Box 2129, Upper Darby, PA 19082

FROM THE EDITOR

ILLUSTRATION BY BRET BLEVINS

We’re back for our third issue and we’ve come out swinging! DRAW! is now available in most Tower Books across the nation and in Tower Records stores that have large magazine sections. Publisher John Morrow and I plan on continuing the expansion of DRAW! into other venues, but you can help us out a lot by asking your local comic retailer or art store to keep plenty of copies of DRAW! in stock. DRAW! isn’t a magazine that goes out of date. Every issue stays eternally fresh! We’ve added several new regular columns to DRAW! starting this issue with a new article on drawing and design by Paul Rivoche. Paul’s probably best known in comic circles as one of the artistic forces behind Mr. X, but Paul has also been working in advertising, illustration and animation, providing inspiration and designs for the last half decade on the WB cartoons Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond and the current hit Justice League. I can’t tell you how happy I was when Paul agreed to come on board and do a column for DRAW! Ask a pal for some reference, and this is what you get! We also have an inking demo by industry legend Dick Giordano. Dick helped tutor and give lots of young artists a start in the comics biz, and he continues to spread and share his knowledge with his article on inking. Animator Chris Bailey has worn many hats and styles in his career. From his days at Don Bluth Studios to his Academy Award-nominated work on Runaway Brain for Disney, to the 3-D world of computer animation and now comics. Chris gives us a lowdown on taking his comic book creation Major Damage from 2-D pencil drawings to a 3-D animated short. Our own Crusty Critic Ande Parks kicks off his new regular article as our reviewer of art products by reviewing several brands of markers. Ande really put the pens through their paces and I think you will find his recommendations very useful, including ordering information and availability. Bret Blevins returns again for more figure drawing and we also get a glimpse into his legendary sketchbooks in the new Sketchbook section that we’ve introduced this issue. I think sketchbooks are the place to see the artist’s best work, I think an artist is honest more often in his sketchbook. I plan on running pages from a new guest artist in every issue. We’ve also added a new page devoted to websites. Every issue I will run a few reviews and links to cool, interesting, informative and instructional cartooning, illustration- and animation-related websites. So if you have some favorite sites send them along to me in an e-mail. There is also an article by your’s truly on my work on the Dr. Direct web comic and trade show give-away comic book I produced for Brooks Instrument. I also included some great comic strip ads, which used to run in the weekly Sunday funnies section. Again our message board is up and running so be sure to surf over and give us some feedback, or post a drawing in our Critique section. And this spring we will be launching a website for DRAW! magazine. Look for more info on this in our next issue. Best, Mike Manley, editor

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INKING

DICK GIORDANO

ON INKING COMICS

ABOVE: Editor Mike Manley’s pencils from Batman #509, inked by Giordano.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Unfortunately, the printed page isn’t the best forum for instruction on inking. Since I won’t be able to “show” you much, I’ll have to “tell” you most. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

nking is an art form. Some people might have a problem with that statement. Heck, some of the uninitiated don’t even know what inking is... and that includes some folk who are into comics as well as those who are not. When I explain to the average person what I do as an inker, a typical response runs along the lines of: “Oh, I see! What you do is trace the pencil drawing in ink!” Well, yes... and no! While “tracing” pencil drawings in ink is a necessary first step in order to reproduce pencil drawings, inking them is not merely tracing them. Today, the inker makes a valid (often-invaluable) contribution to the finished art... or he probably won’t be inking for long.

Historical Sidebar: Comic book inking at the onset of the industry tended to be somewhat crude. The rudimentary reproduction process didn’t take kindly to artistic fine-linework but handled heavy-handed linework well. As reproduction techniques improved, so did the quality of the inking which evolved into a highly refined art form that put everything needed on the paper (special effects, lighting, etc.) in black and white. The better inkers were trying in this way to reduce the negative effects of poor coloring. Their art was thought to be color-proof. Today, of course, we live in a high-tech time where computer color separations produce such beautiful results that it is no longer necessary for the inker to put everything on the art board. Computer color art rules! Having said all that, I feel that before I proceed I must emphasize that the following exploration of inking and inking techniques is not the right approach or the best approach... it is

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 3

INKING

DICK GIORDANO

merely my approach. Many editors in the business today obviously are not smitten with my approach. My last regular DC inking gig (Power of Shazam!) ended nearly three years ago and my very brief Thor run ended after just four issues (I believe) when John Romita, Jr. stepped down from penciling that title more than a year ago. I think though, that my approach to the process of inking is still primarily valid and with the addition of your personal bells and whistles, may well lead you to a rewarding career... or at least, an improvement in your skill level. Onward!

IN ORDER I START ON PANEL 1 PAGE 1 AND INK PANELS IN ORDER: I like to ink the story in the way that the reader will read it. Helps keep consistency and continuity.

BASIC TECHNIQUES AND TOOLS. DECIDE ON AN APPROPRIATE INK STYLE TO EMPLOY:

GOALS The primary goal of a comics inker is to ink the work in front of him as well as it can be inked and to complete the work on time. Your definition of quality work must include timely completion. You can’t say “do you want it good; or do you want it Thursday?” The obvious response (and I’ve used it) is “I want it good and I want it Thursday!” If you’re not capable of doing that, you have an obligation to make that known to your client. (Aside: I have often found that the client will find a little leeway in “Thursday.” That will allow you the extra time you need and allow him to work with the artist he had originally assigned it to. It’s a win/win strategy that works if you’re honest about your capabilities.) A secondary goal will be to fully understand the needs of a particular job. This sometimes requires reading signs and/or interpreting what your client describes as his needs; your client often isn’t an artist and cannot clearly articulate what he is looking for. Often examining the penciled art closely will provide clues to what needs to be done. Take nothing for granted. Be alert.

PROCESS Again, may I stress the following is my process. Doesn’t work for everyone and very few inkers that I know (the “older” ones) follow all the points on my procedural list. Maybe none of them do. Still at the risk of appearing hide-bound, it is a procedure that I’ve followed for decades... and still do. READ THE JOB: If it’s unlettered, I ask for the plot or the script. I need to know what’s happening (good guys, bad guys, time of day, locale, etc.) before I start inking. If it’s unlettered I make my own. If the job has already been lettered, I ask my client for a set of copies made before being lettered. I work better if I know what those lines that go up to the balloons and come out the other side are. Most letterers erase balloons after lettering often leaving a “halo” around the balloon. This missing art is important for me to know.

GET PHOTOCOPIES OF THE PAGES GET SCRAP IF CHARACTERS OR LOCALES IN YOUR STORY HAVE APPEARED IN PREVIOUS ISSUES: This helps me maintain the continuity of the story. The pencil art, tone and goal of the story, and your client’s input are factors in determining a stylistic approach. 4 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

ALL PEN: Of course, you fill large black areas with a brush. Filling in blacks with a pen is a sickness! This style works well if your job is to be color separated by a no-holds-barred computer operated by a color artist who knows what he’s doing. ALL BRUSH: Proof of my Dinosaurism! When I started working professionally in the early ’50s, all or nearly all the cartoonists inked their work primarily with a brush. It was faster and produced linework that was bold enough to be reproduced, while still enhancing and retaining the integrity of the pencil art. Those of us of that bent often claimed “we draw with our brush.” Among the popular syndicated cartoonists of that day that used a brush to ink the majority of their work were Milton Caniff, Frank Robbins, Will Eisner, and Alex Raymond, (though Raymond used a fair amount of pen, especially in X-9 and Flash Gordon). PEN AND BRUSH: Obviously allows you to draw on the best stylistic qualities of both tools. I’ve done several jobs lately using pen to do the basic drawing (heads, hands, outlining foreground elements and inking backgrounds completely, or nearly so). Then I went back in with a brush and inked elements like folds and hair, accented the pen outlines to account for light source and filled in large black areas. This style was more illustrative than modern comic book inking. * Of course, there are infinite variations on how you can utilize these techniques. A Chinese menu approach, (one from Column A, one from Column B) can lead you to a variation that will work for you.

TOOLS I USE: PENS—NON DIP: I regularly use 2 types of non-dip pens that are reliable and provide fixed-width lines: 1) Rotring Rapidoliner. Set of 4 in sizes .25, .35, .50 and .80 mm widths. This pen comes with a metal tip with a valve operation similar to a regular Rapidograph but doesn’t clog as easily. Cleaning by shaking the valve in the barrel is much quicker so you can start working seconds after removing the cap. When you run out of ink you merely pop a new ink cartridge in which comes with a brand new point. The regular Rapidograph has a refillable cartridge—same old (clogged) point!

INKING 2) Staedtler Pigment Liner. Set of 4 in sizes .01, .03, .05 and .07 mm. These pens have felt tips, can’t be refilled but start working immediately and continue to do so until they run out of ink and you toss it. The felt tip makes for a softer line and you can get a bit of thick and thin easily with a bit of pressure, holding the tip at an angle or using double lines. This is a superior drawing pen to the Rotring but the Rotring metal point gives a more consistent weight line when using a straight edge, circle guide, french curve or ellipse guide. DIP PENS: I’ve used quite a few. At various times, one nib or another has been my favorite. The two pens that I’ve consistently felt the most comfortable with over the years have been the Gillotte 404 (not very flexible, even weight line) and the Gillotte 170 (fairly flexible, providing a clean thick and/or thin line without too much pressure). There are other nibs available that are more flexible but most will break easily when you apply heavy pressure. The real Gillotte nibs are brass colored and very hard to find. More readily available, but not as good are Gillott (notice no “e” at the end) which are black metal and a knock-off of the original. They’re okay—just not as good. Whichever dip pen you choose, a certain amount of care is necessary to keep them working efficiently. You can easily use a nib-a-day if you’re careless. Don’t drop them or toss them down, don’t allow ink to build up on either top or bottom surface or the little hole that allows the ink to flow off your pen tip. I clean mine by dipping in water (sometimes as often as every panel) and gently blotting on a soft cloth. (save your old underwear shirts). When the ink build-up gets ahead of me, I’ll gently scrape it off with a sharp single-edge razor blade.

DICK GIORDANO

heavied up. The 1 oz. bottles dry up before they can age—and you’re left with a large number of 1 oz. non-degradable plastic bottles to dispose of. The ink is so gray, that you have to re-ink much of the job after erasing it. Large black areas also require a second coat. Sidebar: Higgins also sells a regular Higgins ink. It doesn’t say Black Magic on the box. It isn’t black (or magic) either and I swear the same ink is in both bottles—a feeling that is enhanced by most Black Magic ink boxes come with a Black Magic label pasted over the otherwise same box as the regular Higgins ink! Oh, woe is me (us?)! Pelikan sells an ink that is blacker than Higgins but it is very flat. Even gray Higgins has a pretty good gloss to it. Looks better in the original and the better reflective surface reproduces better.

INK: Bad times for a brush artist. Years ago there was an ink called Artone Extra-Dense Black. I heard that Higgins didn’t care for the competition so they bought them out and came out with a new formula that was similar to Artone’s and called it Higgins Black Magic. Well, the years passed, they continually altered the formula (perhaps to suit a clientele other than cartoonists) until today it is neither “magic” nor “black.” To add insult to injury, they are now selling Black Magic only in 1 oz. bottles. At least with pint or quart bottles, as the ink aged, it

BRUSHES: Ah, brushes! I use only brushes made with Kolinsky Sable. For inking (and whiteout) I skip around between sizes #2, #3, and #4. You actually can ink as fine a line with #4 as you can with the #2... and the #4, being larger, goes further between dips. The #4 will tend to die sooner, though, losing its snap and point. Whatever size I’m “hot” for at a given moment. The brands I’m most comfortable with are Raphael and Windsor & Newton, Series 7. I seem to get about the same performance and longevity from both and the Dick Blick catalogue lists the Raphael #2 at $16.49 and the Windsor & Newton, Series 7 #2 at $17.95. Hard to make a choice. I alternate. I ink 30 to 60 pages with a single brush. Even at the minimum 30 pages, your brush costs a bit over 50 cents a page. Cheaper brushes may seem a bargain to some—they seem a big gamble to me. I’d rather have the peace of mind of proven performance and 50 odd cents a page isn’t exactly betting the farm.

ABOVE: Stephanie Starr pencils and inks by Giordano (assisted by Joe Rubinstein and/or Terry Austin at Continuity Associates.) From Mike Friedrich’s Star*Reach magazine. GIORDANO: “One of my few successful all pen forays. A minor amount of brushwork on accents and, of course, filling in flat areas of black.”

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 5

DRAWING AND DESIGN

PAUL RIVOCHE

LEFT: Suicide Slum rough. I like to do a lot of roughs when exploring a design, playing with different variations. This one was a rough design for the storyboard artists on a Superman episode. Subjects like this can be fun, playing with familiar mechanical forms by putting them in strange combinations and contrasts, exaggerating the scale, and so on, all the while putting in enough functional elements (steps, vents, fences, lighting, etc.) to make it believable for the viewer.

16 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

simple subject and work up to the more complex) for a moment, as you would if you had a paper and pencil. Then turn away, as if you were actually going to draw. Visualize yourself doing the later paper drawing—project yourself forward to that moment—and try to predict all the information you will need to make it successful. Then gather the information now, beforehand. You don’t actually draw anything, because in this exercise you don’t really have a paper and pencil—the point instead is to examine your “mental image” of the subject in your “mind’s eye,” develop that image as much as possible, and lock it in. And you don’t have to memorize the subject from your particular view or perspective angle as you regard it; instead, study and memorize its three-dimensional forms and structures, independent of a specific viewpoint. So, you’ve turned away from the subject; when you are no longer looking at it, is an image of it still there in your mind? Yes? No? How clear is it? How long does the image linger? Does it disappear from your mind the moment you look away, the moment actual “visual data” are no longer actually streaming in through your eyes? Sometimes I find it helps to close my eyes, to hold the afterimage of the subject I just looked at. Nevertheless, you will probably discover that your mental image wasn’t all that clear in the first place, and also that it fades away quickly as soon as you are no longer looking at the subject. That is the first important realization. Then you can start observing more carefully: turn back to the subject and really observe, noting its silhouette, its lines, shapes, and forms, its points, angles, curves,rhythms, and so on; try to stock your memory so that specifics will still be there when you later start drawing. As you look, try to imagine everything you’ll need to know to do a drawing of the subject, in the order that you’ll need it, from the first main lines you will put down to the smaller details which lock into those bigger shapes and forms.

DRAWING AND DESIGN

PAUL RIVOCHE

LEFT: “Miranda’s Trailer” and “Powers’ Penthouse rough.” Designs such as these ones sometimes depend largely on memories: memories of specific elements that can be incorporated to set the scene, memories of light and shade, memories of mood, and so on... extract your memories, filter them, and put them into your designs. There’s a lot more stored inside you than you may think: don’t just rush around externally to find that perfect piece of reference; also look around internally, in your personal memory-bank, and raid it mercilessly for useful information. Go ahead—think over and recall all the things you’ve seen, and adapt that quirky second cousin of yours into the perfect villain; or use your impressions from that Florida trip to give your background design real conviction; shamelessly steal your bank teller’s haircut and add it to your character—and so on. It’s amazing what’s packed in there, waiting to spring out, when you start digging. © 2002 WARNER BROS. ANIMATION

your memories of real subjects, incorporating bits and pieces into your design, squashing, stretching, morphing, and so on. This also applies to life drawings done in a class—you should be

You may need to glance back and forth many times from your subject to your mental image, building up that image. You may even speak to yourself inside, saying things like, “OK, the overall silhouette makes a large oval shape, with a smaller circle half as wide intersecting at the top; there’s a right angle over at the left where the arm bends, and a pointed shape above it, and...” These mental word-notes can help lock your observations and impressions into your memory, by making your memories verbal as well as visual. Try this for five or ten minutes, or as long as suits you, until you can “see” a clear mental image of your subject even when you are no longer looking at it. Then go somewhere else and try to draw your subject, from your stocked-up memory bank, and see what happens. You may surprise and inspire yourself— because if you’ve done this exercise diligently, you should be able to draw a fairly accurate depiction of your subject purely from memory, in far more detail than is possible from your “unstocked” memory. Also, the image of your subject will last longer in your memory, helping you when you later start designing something out of thin air. You can then “cannibalize” all

BELOW: Two stages of an animation design: line and tone. Problems of arrangement, form, and perspective are worked out in the line stage, leaving concerns of lighting, mood, pattern, etc., to be dealt with in the tonal stage.

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 17

PRODUCT REVIEWS

ANDE PARKS

THE CRUSTY CRITIC

brush in a clean, portable package. The Crusty Critic hit the virtual market of the Internet to find as many brands as possible, and found a lot of good markers… and a few great ones.

THE MARKERS

ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN HEEBINK

There are so many markers available today, that I had to limit myself somehow. I decided to test only disposable markers. I did not include any product that had a replaceable ink cartridge. That excluded a few nice brush-pens, and some technical pens that use cartridges. For the most part, I ended up with disposable technical pen-style markers. These pens are sized like Rapidographs, generally from about 0.1 mm to 0.8 mm in thickness. I also found a few nice brush-markers, which feature a synthetic, flexible brush head. Finally, I found one marker which I love, but which doesn’t fit into either of those categories.

e live in a glorious, modern age. Science has given us just about every gadget, toy and comfort we could have ever dreamed of. Unfortunately, the commercial artist’s tools of the trade have been largely neglected. The search for the perfect brush, pen or even paper, is an ever-increasingly difficult chore. Many artists are adapting, using computers more and more rather than struggling with inferior traditional supplies. For most of us, though, there is still some value in knowing which supplies are well-made and where to get them. Thus, the Crusty Critic vows to scour the globe (or at least the Internet) to find the finest and most affordable art supplies available to the modern-day cartoonist. I shall examine every sable brush hair, drag every pencil across every sheet of Bristol board, and smudge every ink… so that you don’t have to! First, though, I should make it clear that the opinions you’ll find in this column are just that. I will make every effort to be as objective as I can. Whenever possible, the tools here will be judged impartially and using uniform standards. It is inevitable, though, for some subjectivity to find it’s way into the equation. The pen that fits my hand most comfortably may cause blisters for others. The ink which pleases my eye may be offensive to some. This humble critic can only present the options and offer his honest appraisal. It’s up to you to find out if you agree. This issue’s column will be dedicated to markers. Once reserved for sketching and drawing on the road, it seems that markers are now being used more and more in the studio. The quality and diversity of markers has vastly improved over the last decade. The inks are more permanent, and there are a wide array of sizes and points. There are also a number of good brush-markers available, giving cartoonists the flexibility of a

22 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

Image #1: Ordway Pencils I scanned the pencils as a bitmap at 600 dpi. After saving, I converted the image to grayscale, and then RGB. I then used the magic wand and the “select similar” command to select all of the black pixels, which were then filled with a light blue. I printed the image on a good sheet of Bristol, which I had cut down to fit my inkjet printer. I selected a paper with just a bit of tooth. The smoother the paper, the longer the drying time.

PRODUCT REVIEWS

ANDE PARKS

BRUSH-PENS REVIEWED (in alphabetical order): • Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen (size B is a brush) • Sakura Pigma Brush • Copic Multi-Liner Brush

OTHER PENS REVIEWED: • Fountain Pentel

TECHNICAL PENS REVIEWED

Image #2: Ordway inks Step 1 Using all of the technical pen markers, I went through the drawing, doing as much linework as possible. The Zig Millennium pen quickly became my favorite tool. I used sizes ranging from .01 mm to 0.05 mm. The 0.08 size even came in handy for some ruling and the word balloons. I left feathering, textures, and black areas for the brush stage.

When choosing which pens to test, I did not include anything that wouldn’t be available to readers nationwide. I was able to order every one of these products online, and I also graded the stores from which I ordered. I was not able to find a few pens I have used and liked in the past... most notably Staedtler’s Pigment Liners. They may still be available, but several hours of searching and an e-mail to Staedtler through their website did not produce results. I also decided to only review pens that used permanent ink. The Crusty Critic can’t afford to have his masterpieces ruined by his adoring, but sometimes sweaty, fans. TECHNICAL PENS REVIEWED (in alphabetical order): • Alvin Tech Liner • Copic Multi-Liner • Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen • Neo Piko • Sakura Pigma Micron • Zig Millenium

I put these pens through some pretty rigorous testing in the Crusty Critic laboratory. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say their were a lot of smudged pieces of paper littering the floor by the end of the day. I was particularly interested in drying time. In other words, how long does the ink remain wet after the mark is made. This was crucial to me. One of the advantages to using markers is their immediacy. If I’m going to wait around all day for the ink to dry, afraid of smearing each mark, I’d just as soon use a crowquill pen and real India ink. Using the same size of each pen, I made similar marks, and then tried to smear the ink after one, three, five and seven seconds. I was easily able to narrow my search for the perfect marker, as several of the pens took over five seconds to dry. Three pens dried in five seconds or less, and moved on to the finals: the Faber Castell, the Sakura Micron, and the Zig Millennium. Of those, the Zig and the Micron seemed to dry the fastest. I was also concerned with the light-fastness of the ink. I don’t want my drawings fading away over time. I was pleased to see that all of the pens tested seemed very immune to fading when placed in direct sun for long periods of time. None of these inks are as black as a good India ink, but they are certainly dark enough to reproduce. Of all of the pens, the Alvins appeared blackest to my eye. Those pens, however, took a long time to dry. Nothing happened during the tests for light-fastness to change my opinion after the smudge tests… the Zig and the Micron still seemed to be the best. So, it was time to put nylon to paper and see how these pens performed. I scanned a copy of some Jerry Ordway pencils, and went to work. I chose a paper that was pretty smooth, but with a little bit of tooth. The smoother the paper, the longer the drying time. If the paper is too rough, it may be harder to get a smooth line. It didn’t take me long to figure out which pens I liked inking with best. It may seem redundant, but the Zig and the Micron stood out. They were easy to handle, and they come in a wide variety of sizes. I found myself inking with one hand, and holding a fistful of the pens in the other… switching whenever I needed to change the line weight. In the end, the Zig was my favorite. It seemed to dry the fastest, and was easy to handle. The Micron was also excellent, but it would bleed on occasion. So, my favorite of the pens reviewed was the Zig Millennium. They dry quickly, come in a wide variety of sizes, hold their point well, and are a pleasure to draw with.

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 23

ANIMATION

CHRIS BAILEY

CB: I love the broader, simpler Marvel artists from the ’60s and ’70s. Marie Severin is a favorite of mine as well as the other artists I mentioned. I liked her silly super-heroes from Not Brand Echh! and own a Subby page of hers. I didn’t get Kirby as a kid and thought all of his characters looked like they were made of metal. I actually liked Colletta’s inks on Thor because it softened him up. Talk about being young and dumb! Now I love Kirby’s comics except for the ones with Colletta’s inks. I have a page from the Silver Surfer graphic novel that he and Stan did that I never get tired of looking at. Joe Sinnott’s inking is gorgeous. John Buscema is amazing. The man can’t make a bad drawing. He brought a level of illustration and acting to the Kirby dynamics that defined Marvel for me. I was regularly reading the FF during his first run on the book and loved it. I think it’s funny that he now talks about how silly those characters are and how he doesn’t get super-heroes. To me, he was co-creating some of the best fiction of my life. One thing that both John Buscema and Gene Colan have in common that I like was the sense of weight their characters had. Buscema’s characters were always so well-planted on the ground and Gene’s Iron Man felt like he weighed 1000 pounds! That was always something that I’ve tried to get into my animation. For Major Damage, we experimented with several different types of walks on the Tiki Terrors to communicate their weight. If you look closely, you can see the difference from shot to shot. One trick that always caught my eye was when comics artists would “animate” a character moving through a panel. I think John Byrne did it a lot. I liked it when I could “feel” the forces at work. Usually there was a drawing that didn’t work in the sequence and it would stick out like a sore thumb to me. I tried the effect myself once in high school on a personal comic page and in-betweened the hell out of it. I think it was Shang Chi leaping into the air and kicking some guy in the face. I drew about a dozen poses between the extremes. Total overkill! Even though I wasn’t consciously thinking about becoming an animator, animation was clearly an influence in my life.

of detail. An elegant arm would be punctuated with a violent, gnarled hand with arthritic joints. His drawings were like Hirschfield characters on crack. DRAW!: Were you into any video games or computer animation at all at that time? Things like Tron, etc.? CB: Sure, but no more than the average kid. There wasn’t a whole lot of computer animation or animation period to be inspired by in the late ’70s/early ’80s. I wanted to do comics. Films like Star Wars were inspiring for all its monsters and comic book trappings, but getting into the movies didn’t seem as accessible as a career in comics and I never gave it much thought. Pretty ironic considering where I wound up. DRAW!: Did you ever try and get into comics during this time? You know, do samples, make the convention rounds? CB: I never did the convention rounds, but while working at Don Bluth Animation in the mid-’80s, Bruce Timm and I collab-

CB: Sure. When I was young, complicated detail in drawing impressed me and I thought simple cartooning was for people who couldn’t do illustration. Eventually, I realized that the people who drew the Disney films and the great Warner cartoons could draw circles around most comics artists. I started to appreciate the Hirschfield, Chuck Jones, Vip Parch, Kley, Harvey Kurtzman and others. Caricature overtook my interest in realism. Not the big head kind of caricature you find at the local carnival, but genuine caricature. I saw that believability is not the same as realism. To me, the “real” characters in a Disney film were never as real as the cartoon characters, even though I could tell the realistic characters were traced over actors. One of the best things about being an animator at Disney was to draw in different styles. Working on Hercules, I animated Nessus, the River god, who was designed by Gerald Scarfe. He would do this thing where one side of the character would be smooth and elegant, but the other would be contrasted with lots

28 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

DRAW!: Did your influences change as you developed as an artist?

ABOVE: The cover for the upcoming Major Damage comic was inspired by Marie Severin and John Buscema’s cover for Fantastic Four #107, one of Chris’ favorite comics as a kid.

ANIMATION

CHRIS BAILEY

orated on a Dirk the Daring comics page. I penciled and he inked.We heard there was some interest on the part of a comics publisher for a Dragon’s Lair comic and we wanted to throw our hats into the ring as the creative team. Nothing ever came from it. Later, after the studio closed down, I submitted some Daredevil pages to Marvel. Tom Defalco sent me a nice rejection letter, but encouraged me to send in more samples. By the time the letter came, I had another job in animation so I never pursued it. My Daredevil had these big Dirk the Daring feet. I thought it looked “real” at the time, but I had been drawing Dirk for so long it has skewed my sense of normalcy. DD’s feet were huge.

DRAW!: What would you say that was the most important thing you got out of going to art school? CB: The culture. I don’t mean the culture from the book learning, but from the artists and faculty. My sense of what was good drawing, acting and design was focused by my relationships there. My design instructor, Bill Moore, often said that everything he taught was to be found in nature. He didn’t draw, at least in class, but I learned more about drawing, animation and timing from him than any of my other instructors. He had this funny quote about people and art... that when people said that they didn’t know much about art, but they knew what they liked, he said what they meant was that they liked what they knew... which wasn’t very much. He made you want to keep searching and learning.

DRAW!: After you graduated from college, what were some of your first jobs? You mentioned you worked with Don Bluth for a while. CB: I started as an assistant animator at a small studio doing short cartoons for about 6 months before it closed down. The owner went to jail on some kind of fraud charge or something and the studio was some kind of front. From there, I went to Bluth to animate on Space Ace. A bunch of my Cal Arts friends had found work over there and were actually animating, not just assisting. That was unheard of back then. Everyone knew you had to assist before you got to animate. Space Ace was a fun project to work on even if the atmosphere at Bluth’s wasn’t. The studio atmosphere felt cult-like to me and I had to work in a dark little annex that leaked in the rain. I worked on Space Ace, Dragon’s Lair II and was starting work on a forth game when Bluth went out of business. I was there all of eight months. For what it’s worth, I think Space Ace was the best thing Bluth ever did. It was a great learning experience and a dream come true to be animating cartoony super-heroes and monsters right out of school. For the first time, animated super-heroes moved like super-heroes. Up until then, animated super-heroes might have resembled the characters from the comics, but they moved like cardboard cutouts. Space Ace moved how I thought TOP: A Major Damage story sketch. BOTTOM: Pre-viz painting by Alan Battino to establish the look of the cartoon. LEFT: Pencil page from Major Damage comic.

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 29

WEB COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

THE DOCTOR IS IN DRAW! EDITOR MIKE MANLEY GIVES A STEP-BY-STEP ON PRODUCING THE ADVENTURES OF DR. DIRECT WEB COMIC STRIP

38 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

THE EVOLUTION OF A CHARACTER

n the face of it you wouldn’t think precision mass flow or liquid processes sound like they would be very interesting subjects, unless you were an engineer or a scientist of some sort. Well this was the problem a local ad agency Praxis Communications wanted solved when they approached me early last year, and inquired about me producing an Internet comic strip for their client Brooks Instruments. Brooks makes a device called Quantim, which they wanted to try and push in a different and unique way. They felt that a comic strip would be the way to go. Maybe make it a bit more fun, and make their product stand out in the crowd. So after a bit of back and forth with the agency, they settled on the idea of doing a weekly web-based comic trip featuring Dr. Direct, a sort of goofy scientist type. Each week the Doctor, aided by his faithful dog Kepler and his bird Gaspard, would ride to the rescue of some scientist in distress on his motorcycle. Praxis had been producing short promo films and video bits using a live action Dr. Direct (sans dog and bird) helping technicians and scientists in trouble by introducing them to Brooks’ Quantim device. Advertising agencies have been using comics and comic strips to sell products for decades. We all remember the Hostess Fruit Pie ads in Marvel and DC comics featuring our favorite heroes defeating the nefarious villains with the irresistible golden flaky crusts and delicious fruit fillings. The newspaper Sunday Funnies section had long been full of very similar ads hawking dish soap, tooth polish, candy and even cigarettes! Yes, while Jack and Jill read the Sunday comic section, they also got to read comic strips drawn by agency artists depicting the Smooth of Phillip Morris cigarettes. Oh, how times have changed. Many famous cartoonists and comic strip characters also lent their four-color salesmanship to help Madison Avenue sell products to the millions of comic readers every week. The first stage was to get the designs for the characters down and develop the for-

THE FINAL DESIGN

Working from the visual reference of the actor who portrayed Dr. Direct in the videos, I proceeded to do a series of rough designs of the characters. There were certain requests made by the client. They wanted the dog to be similar to the dog Grommet from the Nick Park, Wallace and Grommet films. They also wanted the Doc to have a sort of smart-aleck bird. I started out just doodling rough and fast. The Doctor was easy since I already had a visual reference to work from. I referred the client to my website and they asked for a style similar to the more cartoonish or animated look of some of the work I had featured there. One of the technical concerns I wanted to lick right away was the web-based format. I did a series of designs of the Doctor, and really pushed for the version with the “dot” eyes which luckily the agency and client both liked. I wanted the Doctor to have a slightly childlike appearance and I feel that doing things like “dot” eyes is a lot of fun. I was also drawing inspiration from cartoons like the Jay Ward style (Rocky and Bullwinkle as well as the old Captain Crunch ads) and cartoonists like Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace) and his clear and elegant line style. I felt that type of approach would work well and be fun to do.

WEB COMICS

THE FINAL DESIGN

ABOVE: After the Doctor was done I worked next on his canine cohort, who is actually the brains of the outfit, Kepler. I started sketching, doodling. I initially wanted to keep him looking like anything but Grommet and went for a sheepdog type look. But I ended up coming around to a smother look.

THE FINAL DESIGN

MIKE MANLEY

mat. The agency had a writer already lined up that they had worked with before. The writer was an old Marvel Comics fan and looked forward to working on something probably a little more outside of his usual milieu. His writing was pretty sharp, witty and more to the point he did a very good job of conveying the technical aspects and “the pitch” of the Quantim device, something that is frankly pretty hard to do and make funny. One of the first things I had to do was get everyone on the same page as to style and format. What worked best for the clients needs vs. artistic considerations and format. I gave the agency a little crash-course in comics and web comics. Though most people have read the comics and funnies, even very talented people often don’t have any clue how comics are made. So once we were all on the same page we came up with a format that would solve a few big criteria, readability, and easy download/ file size. At 72 dpi and with the amount of copy that would be required I realized that at times the visuals were certainly going to be taking second place to the copy. Thus a simple clear easy to read style was a must. Also the simpler the style, the easier (in theory) the strip would be able to produce every week. I already had experience in doing web comics from my own web strip G.I.R.L. Patrol (www.actionplanet.com). I had learned through trial and error the differences between regular print comics and the web. You just don’t have the resolution to do detail at the small file size that the strip would need to be to load into the viewers web browser without a long download time. One of the things I enjoy the most about working on web comics is the color and color combinations you can get in RGB as opposed to print CMYK. You can get really intense colors; color combinations right next to each other that would be impossible in print. The client also wanted the strip available to print out so a version of the strip was converted and prepared by the agency to be downloaded via PDF in Adobe Acrobat. This way fans who like the strip could print it out and pin it up at work. You could have your cake and eat it too. After settling on a color scheme for each character, I made a small color palette for each character in Photoshop, which sped up the coloring process. I kept the palettes open when coloring the characters, holding down the option key to quickly sample the desired color and using the paint bucket to fill in selected areas.

ABOVE MIDDLE: The bird Gaspard was the easiest, since He was a parrot. I can’t help but hear comedian Gilbert Godfried’s voice in my head when reading his dialogue. I wonder why? The goal was always to make the silhouettes of the characters read very cleanly since they would at times have to be quite small in the panels to accommodate the copy. RIGHT: This is the final design of the Doc and gang that was approved by the client. ABOVE: The palette I made for each character to speed up the coloring process.

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 39

WEB COMICS

MIKE MANLEY

ABOVE: The script written and formatted by the writer, Art Levy. Once approved by the client and agency it is sent via e-mail to me.

RIGHT: The first step for me is to do a rough breakdown of the script to get a feel for the layout and flow. The format is pretty tight here since there is a lot of copy.

ABOVE: This is the final penciled strip, done just tight enough so I won’t have to worry when I go to inks, but clear enough for the client to see all the important details. Each panel is drawn on 81⁄2" x 11" laser printer paper in 2B pencil. Since everything is being done digital the original can be done on copy paper, and scanned.

40 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

THE PROCESS

WEB COMICS

INKING

LETTERING

COLORING

FINAL ART

MIKE MANLEY

INKING: I inked 99% of the strips with a combination of Micron Pigma markers No.1 and 003. They work well, have a nice line and are permanent, though you do have to really allow the inking to dry a good 10 minutes or better depending on heat and humidity before erasing. I was able to ink the strips really fast with these markers and again, the speed was an issue here. Since the original never left my studio, I felt that working with markers was fine and safe. LETTERING: Originally I started doing all the lettering in Photoshop, but with the last few strips I changed over to using Adobe Illustrator. Opening the script in Microsoft Word, I’d cut and paste the copy into the Photoshop document in layers. I’d draw the balloons on a separate layer with the Elliptical Marquee tool and set the stroke width at 6 pixels. I’d draw the balloon tails with either the line tool set to the same width or freehand with the paintbrush. The balloons are filled white with the paint bucket and the image is saved as a jpeg and sent off to the client for approval. COLORING: The coloring is always the most fun part of the job for me, and it’s something that most people comment on right away when they see the strip. I start by opening the art in Photoshop as a bitmap and then do any touchups and clean-ups. Then I covert the image to RGB. Next I select the image and cut and paste it into a new layer. I take the lasso and select a small area of the white, and then from the menu I select Similar and then Delete. This deletes everything but the black line art and creates essentially a clear cell, like in animation. I check the Preserve Transparency box. I now have two layers, a Background Layer and a black line layer, Layer 1. This allows me to color on the background and leave the black line art on Layer 1 alone, or I can use the paintbrush set to Normal to paint over the black lines on Layer 1 and create a color line. Using a combination of the Bucket, Paintbrush and Gradient tools I color each individual panel. I like simple gradients and not an excessive amount of modeling since the style of the strip is very graphic. The main goal is to make the elements read, separate figures from foreground and background. FINAL ART: The final art is assembled by flattening the layers of the color art and pasting that image into the document containing the pencil drawing and the lettering. I delete the pencil layer and then flatten the image. I save the final panels each at 343 pixels high (the format dimensions required by the agency) at 72 dpi, then save them as jpegs with an Image Quality compression of 8 and check the Baseline Standard format button. Then each panel is sent separately via FTP to the agency’s server using FETCH. SYSTEM AND SOFTWARE: I am using a G4 Power Mac running OS 9.1 with a 100 gig hard drive and 400 megs of RAM. I use Adobe Photoshop 5.02 and Adobe Illustrator 9.02 and an Intous 9" x 12" digital tablet.

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 41

If you’re viewing a digital version of this publication, PLEASE read this plea from the publisher! his is COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL, which is NOT INTENDED FOR FREE T DOWNLOADING ANYWHERE. If you’re a print subscriber, or you paid the modest fee we charge to download it at our website, you have our sincere thanks—your support allows us to keep producing publications like this one. If instead you downloaded it for free from some other website or torrent, please know that it was absolutely 100% DONE WITHOUT OUR CONSENT, and it was an ILLEGAL POSTING OF OUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. If that’s the case, here’s what you should do: 1) Go ahead and READ THIS DIGITAL ISSUE, and see what you think. 2) If you enjoy it enough to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and purchase a legal download of it from our website, or purchase the print edition at our website (which entitles you to the Digital Edition for free) or at your local comic book shop. We’d love to have you as a regular paid reader. 3) Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR COMPUTER and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. 4) Finally, DON’T KEEP DOWNLOADING OUR MATERIAL ILLEGALLY, for free. We offer one complete issue of all our magazines for free downloading at our website, which should be sufficient for you to decide if you want to purchase others. If you enjoy our publications enough to keep downloading them, support our company by paying for the material we produce. We’re not some giant corporation with deep pockets, and can absorb these losses. We’re a small company—literally a “mom and pop” shop—with dozens of hard-working freelance creators, slaving away day and night and on weekends, to make a pretty minimal amount of income for all this work. We love what we do, but our editors, authors, and your local comic shop owner, rely on income from this publication to stay in business. Please don’t rob us of the small amount of compensation we receive. Doing so will ensure there won’t be any future products like this to download. TwoMorrows publications should only be downloaded at

www.twomorrows.com

NEXT ISSUE IN APRIL!

INTERVIEWS and “HOW-TO” DEMOS by TODAY’S TOP PROFESSIONALS, in all aspects of COMICS, CARTOONING, AND ANIMATION, including: • DYNAMIC LAYOUT AND PENCILING with ERIK (Savage Dragon) LARSEN! • INKING TUTORIAL with KEVIN (Jack B. Quick) NOWLAN! • COLORING IN PHOTOSHOP tutorial by DAVE (Weasel) COOPER! • Figure drawing by BRET BLEVINS, procedures and theories by PAUL RIVOCHE, a lavish color section, and MUCH MORE! (Edited by MIKE MANLEY • 88 pages with COLOR SECTION) Jack B . Quic k TM &

rica’s B est Co mics L LC

SUBSCRIBE NOW! Four Issues in the US: $20 Standard, $32 First Class (Canada: $40, Elsewhere: $44 Surface, $60 Airmail).

TwoMorrows. Bringing New Life To Comics Fandom. TwoMorrows Publishing • 1812 Park Drive • Raleigh, NC 27605 USA • 919-833-8092 • FAX: 919-833-8023 • e-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • www.twomorrows.com

Often, an artist’s best and most private work is kept in their sketchbook. Away from the editor’s blue pencil, away from the restrictions of time, reproduction and the like.There is something freeing about a sheet of loose paper, a place as vast or as casual as the artist desires. A place to scribble down whatever sparks the imagination. Since the first issue of Draw!, readers have been asking to see more works from Mr. Blevins. And we are more than happy to comply.So enjoy the pages from Bret’s sketchbook to kick off our new regular Draw! feature called...

SKETCHBOOK

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 53

GREAT WEBSITES SURFS UP! Here is a list of some cool websites We here at dRAW! think you readers will find entertaining, informative, instructional and sometimes just plain kookie!

COMICS http://www.comicon.com http://www.comicon.com/newsarama http://www.comicon.com/splash http://toonorama.com All of these site are joined together at the hip from comicon.com, Rick Veitch’s and Steve Conley’s virtual comic convention. Get in-touch with artists and publishers in the virtual convention halls, surf the entertaining message boards, get breaking news and daily web comics on toonarama.com such as Abbie’s Menagerie, Astounding Space Thrills, Crater Kid, Buzzboy, Damnation Gambit, Dick Profane Flying Car, Lethargic Lad, Mystic For Hire, (requires FLASH), Doctor Cyborg, Hammer of the Gods, Naked Brain, The Body, and The Circle Weave.

http://comicscontinuum.com A good site for daily updates on the news from the worlds of comics and animation.

http://www.illustration-house.com For over twenty years, Illustration House, Inc. has been America’s foremost gallery devoted to the art and history of illustration. Run by proprietors Walt and Roger Reed, preeminent authorities in the field. Their book The Illustrator in America 1880-1980 is the definitive historical on American illustration.

ANIMATION http://www.shaneglines.com The website of character designer and animation artist (and DRAW! contributor) Shane Glines. His site isn’t just devoted to him though. It’s a must-see site devoted to celebrating the great cartoonists from Hank Ketcham to Peter Hawley, Earl Oliver Hurst to Sokol and McGinnis. Shane has gone to great lengths and devoted much time and energy to tracking down and displaying the work of many great cartoonists and illustrators largely forgotten and neglected. He also runs two very lively message boards.

The Discussion Board

http://digitalwebbing.com

http://pub54.ezboard.com/bcartoonandillustrationparadise

A good source for finding out about comic book-related websites. Daily listing of updates to hundreds of sites, comic book news, interviews, previews a talent search and CBEM—Comic Book Network Electronic Magazine

http://pub54.ezboard.com/bcartoonandillustrationparadise66133

The Drawing Board

http://www.animationblast.com

ILLUSTRATION http://www.zachtrenholm.com/index.html The website of Zack Trenholm, a San Francisco caricaturist who’s done work for such clients as Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Business Week, GQ, TV Guide and the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.timbiskup.com Tim Biskup’s cool site featuring lots of his animation work and paintings. Biskup also runs the Burning Brush art auctions.

http://www.michiko.com Michiko Stehrenberger specializes in creating illustration and character design for animation, logos, books, magazines and interactive projects. She’s done work for everyone from MTV and Coca-Cola to Sony.

58 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

The web home of Amid Amidi’s cool magazine Animation Blast devoted to animation, its unsung artists and history. Amid recently gave his site a fresh new design. The site is a blend of news, opinions and commentary that puts the focus on animation artists and their art. Amid covers the animation scene pretty well and he has strong opinions and is not afraid to air them.

GOT A GREAT SITE TO RECOMMEND? E-MAIL IT TO: mike@actionplanet.com

FIGURE DRAWING

BRET BLEVINS

DRAWING THE FIGURE IN ACTION

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 59

FIGURE DRAWING

BRET BLEVINS

he bodies writhing, twisting, leaping and flying across the following pages are dancing with gravity. This creates a sense of heaving weight in motion—the essential characteristic of convincing figure action. Without an awareness of gravity a drawn figure seems to lack mass and substance—it “floats” on the paper. Believable action conveys a sense of friction against a resisting atmosphere. To achieve this it’s best to start with an accurate conception of the body’s true physical nature—as heavy, fluid flesh turning and twisting on a rigid skeletal framework. This sense of muscle sliding over bone is the crucial guiding motif of powerful images of figures in action. (In drawings or photography.) Often a figure drawing is weak and disappointing because it was conceived as a poseable arrangement of fixed anatomy, resulting in a stiff, dolllike appearance. Always begin with a free and loose gesture drawing—find the largest sweep of movement running through the pose. (Animators refer to this as the “line of action.”) I find it best to work with an armature first—each artist will tailor his or her armature to their own preferences in proportion and body type, and degree of initial solidity. Below are the two general directions one can favor in designing an armature: Example A and B. Both approaches work well, and often an artist will lean toward the one more appropriate to the task at hand. Usually the solid-sectioned armature is more suitable for sedentary or quiet poses, the “wire frame” for extreme movement. I prefer the thinner, looser armature because it encourages “pushing” the figure to its limits. I also enjoy stretching and “sculpting” the muscles and flesh over the thin framework as the drawing progresses, making discoveries about the elasticity of flesh and how far the anatomy can be convincingly manipulated. After designing an armature you feel is a comfortable sketching tool, get in the habit of beginning your searching doodles with a narrative purpose—have some idea of what the character emerging from your pencil tip is feeling or thinking. As I’ve stressed in previous DRAW! articles, a figure drawing containing no evidence of a mind or emotions is just a figure-shaped arrangement of dead lines on a surface—no more alive than a roadside STOP sign. Decide what your figure is intending by its action, and positions expressive of those intentions will occur to you as you draw. Attentive study and observation of people will broaden your vocabulary of possible poses, but everyone, by the act of being alive, has an enormous store of innate figure-action knowledge. “Reading” the body language of other people is an essential human skill, though when faced with the confusing complexity of making a figure drawing many artists lose touch with this instinctual resource and timidly construct mannequins in awkward, unnatural, puppet-like poses. So again it’s important to empathize with the character, know its intentions, feel the movements within your own body and attempt to translate the sense of wedging and twisting of fleshy mass against bone to the lines and marks you are making on the paper. Sometimes it helps to actually go through the action yourself—in front of a mirror, if possible—try to follow the movement with your “inner artist’s eye” and connect it to your physical awareness of shifting, thrusting weight against the resistance of gravity. 60 DRAW! • WINTER 2002

A flexible jointed figure of solid anatomical shapes– EXAMPLE A

EXAMPLE B

FIGURE DRAWING

BRET BLEVINS

Or a spindly “wire frame” that allows wilder initial posing.

It’s usually wise to start with the spine—typically the longest section of a line of action, and (except occasionally in a drawing of extreme foreshortening) invariably the center of the movement, because it is the central support of the body—the head, arms, hips and legs radiate out from it. Example C.

DRAW! • WINTER 2002 61

Draw #3