Learn to Draw Cartoons Lesson 3: Inking the Head and Figure

Learn to Draw Cartoons is a series of articles based on the Famous Artist Cartoon Course book, now in public domain. This lesson artists are: Rube Goldberg, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, Harry Haenigsen, Willard Mullin, Gurney Williams, Dick Cavalli, Whitney Darrow, Jr., Virgil Partch, Barney Tobey.

Check out the other Lessons on IAMAG here.

Inking the head and figure

Up to this time you have been working in pencil only. Now it is time to start working and practicing with pen and ink. Nearly all newspaper and most magazine cartoons are drawn in ink, so as soon as possible you must learn to master those most useful and versatile tools – the pen and the brush. The great joy of inking with pen or brush is the clean effect you achieve. At first you will feel like throwing the bottle of ink through the window as you blot and scratch your way through page after page of ink­ing. But – your blots will pay off in experience, and you will be drawing nice clean lines even before you know it. In no other phase of cartooning does practice pay off so rapidly. Right from the start, work out a system for inking the figure. By system we mean the order of inking the individual parts that make up the figure.

02

A system for inking has the great advantage of speed. If you were to ink the feet first, you would have to wait for them to dry before you could go on with the rest of the fig­ure. Also, by always inking the parts of a figure in the same order (preferably from top to bottom) you will find there is much less chance of forgetting to ink some part. You may be interested primarily in brush work, but you should also do these exercises in pen. If you master the pen, the brush will be no problem. Anything you can do with a pen you can do with a brush. Remember that for pen work you will need a smooth or high surface board or paper to draw on. Use a good black waterproof drawing ink and a Gillott 170 or comparative pen point. Never be careless about materials. It will show in your work. You wouldn’t want your dentist to use a carpenter’s auger on your teeth. Use the proper tools to get the proper effect.

03

Basic pen lines

We have prepared the basic pen lines for you on this page. Prac­tice them to familiarize yourself with what you can do with a pen. Don’t be satisfied with drawing them just once or twice -do them as many times as you think necessary. In shading with a pen you must be right the first time; there is no going back and fixing it. Nothing shows up quicker in a pen and ink drawing than a spot of crosshatching that has been gone over several times in an attempt to correct it. Shading and tone with a pen must look fresh. The quickest way to kill that look is to try touching up the drawing after it has been finished. When practicing crosshatching and the other strokes shown, it is not necessary to use the pen illustrated. Try each of the squares with several different pens; you never know what a pen can do until you try it. In doing crosshatching of any kind be sure that the first set of lines is dry before you cross them. with the next. After a while, the sureness of each line will indicate that you know what you are doing – skill will snuggle up to you before you realize it!

04

05

06

Brush drawing

The brush is a most versatile tool. It has become very popular in cartooning during the last ten or fifteen years, particularly in the field of magazine gag panel cartooning. Besides drawing with the brush, you will use it for filling in solid blacks and for apply­ing washes. When dipping your brush in the ink, always press it gently against the inside edge of the bottle neck to remove ex­cess ink. Before touching your brush to the paper try it first on a paper palette (a strip of paper thumbtacked to the top or side of your drawing board). Never let ink dry on the brush. Always wash it by rubbing the brush lightly and gently on a cake of soap, then rinse it in clear water ·when you are ready to put the brush away.

07

08

Inking The head

09

Inking The Figure

010

Using the tools

The pens and brushes may be identical, but the results of using them are always different in this business. Different hands auto­matically put different pressures on parts of the lines. As you practice, you will find strokes that come easily and others that will take some thought on your part. Keep thinking: every good cartoonist agrees that there is always something new and exciting to be learned from his pen. Now is the time to start practicing and experimenting until the skill of using your tools comes nat­urally to your hand. It will – in time.

011

Patterns on clothes

Clothing patterns serve several purposes. They give “color” and a decorative quality to simple outline drawings and are especially useful where solid blacks might confuse the form and action of the figure. They also help give an illusion of solid, three-dimensional form to otherwise Hat-looking figures and reveal something about the character of your cartoon actors. For instance, a loud checkered pattern on a suit suggests a sporty character, a tweed pattern an English country gentleman, a plaid a Scotsman, etc.

012

Blacking in

013

Correcting mistakes on ink drawings

Every cartoonist loves to stick his finger into a freshly inked line to see if the ink is dry. As this creates a mess out of the line, we must have some way to clean up the smeared line we should have known was wet all the time. As illustrated below, there are several good ways to clean up a messy line or spot of undesired ink. Regardless of the method used to correct an inked line, you should remember that your drawing is going to be reproduced. The camera will pick up any undesired marks left on the paper. Make a habit of developing a neat, clean, repair job. If the drawing is too badly smeared or splattered, it is usually better to tear it up and start over.

014

015

016

017

018

019

020

Spread the love