Cartoon of two babies. One says, “My first birthday is next week. Talk about pressure!”
There are lots of birthdays in my family this time of year. I don’t know how we planned multiple generations to have summer birthdays, but I’ll take them. I much rather eat ice cream with my cake in the summer instead of the dead of winter. No pressure for you winter birthday people. I’ll eat the ice cream in January too, if prodded.
Cartoon of a boy and girl toddler at church. The girl is enthusiastic. The boy says, “That’s a quite a joyful noise you’re making there.”
I drew this cartoon for Church of God Ministries. You can find the newsletter at http://www.chog.org/chognews/CHOGnews-jun11.htm.
Cartoon of a boy with a frisbee and a dog. The boy says, “Any dog can catch a frisbee. My goal is to teach you to throw it to me.”
The dog would extra bonus points if he could throw it with his paws.
Cartoon of two boys watching TV. One boy says,”We’ve been on summer break for five minutes. I’m bored.”
I’ll get back to the tutorial soon, but I just had to add another cartoon to the mix. It’s just now summer break for kids in my area. I remember the days when I was bored out of my skull during the first few days of summer break. After all, there were only three or four channels to watch. We have more channels today, but the kids still have to suffer with nothing good to watch on TV. Come to think of if, when WAS there something good to watch of TV?
Next, I print out the sketch and determine where I will place the shading. This is a technique I learned from the illustrator, Von Glitschka. He has a great site called illustrationclass.com. He also has a book called “Vector Basic Training” that is chocked full of great info.
The shading is even more important if I choose not to outline the art. Many times, I outline the details and the outer portion of the art with a black rule. On this one, I want the shading to define the shape. It will also allow me to emphasize the roundness or volume of the figure.
Next, I’ll place this file into Adobe Illustrator and make it a template. Yes, you can have more than one template in Illustrator. I’ll start the shading within the program next.
