I have picked up my fair share of “how to draw comics” books that purport to tell you all there is to know about making comics in the vain hope that by reading about making comics, I will become really good at it.  These are the type of Teach Yourslef books that instruct you in the manner of creating sequential art and tend to start with the materials that you need and build from there.

Although I have several books that vary in quality, they all have something in common:  They have all universally intimidated me in terms of the materials needed to the point that it has often scared me away from doing any significant practise.

My message to anyone who wants to draw cartoons, comics or just general illustrations is to follow the only piece of advice that I have found works for me.  Practise.  Just get on and draw something.

What you use to create your comics does not have to be fancy or elaborate and your setup does not have to be complicated.

Above are the materials I use to draw all of my tortoises and anything else I ever produce for a digital platform.  In my hand you can see a 3H pencil (but a standard HB is just fine), an 05 drawing pen, an eraser, and a stack of paper attached to an A4 clipboard that is resting on my knee.

My drawing environment is in fact on my knee.  I have got so used to drawing this way that using a table actually throws me off.  At one point I invested in some decent Bristol Board, some illustration ink, a sable brush and some crow-quill ink pens in an attempt to produce higher quality work, and although a lot of what I produced with it did indeed look a little better, it scared me away from doing anything and put me off just getting on and drawing something.

The best way to improve the quality of your comics or cartoons is to keep doing them.  The first ones you produce will be awful and will lower your spirits so far they’re basically leaking out of your feet, but if you stick with it, you’ll notice a steady improvement.

All you need is paper, some form of drawing implement, and a little time, and you can be creating comics.  You could actually easily cut out the ink pen from my kit pictured depending on what you want to do.  I only use it because I’ve found it makes scanning my images in easier and produces cleaner lines, but I know that some of the professional studios actually only use pencils these days.

I will just finish up by saying that to produce good comics, then yes, you will need a lot of practise and learning a little theory will eventually become useful.  Things like perspective and basic anatomy trip everyone up and I am in no place to preach about producing good comics when I think about some of the rubbish I’ve made, but what I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to use incredibly expensive materials in a beautifully expansive studio room with an A1 drawing board to create outstanding work.

In the second part, I’ll go through how I colour my images using my computer.

 

Additional Notes:

In case anyone feels so fired up to get involved with making comics but really wants a decent book on the theory, then I would strongly recommend How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

This was the first book that I bought when I started to get in to comics and graphic novels properly and covers all the major bases.  It even has fantastic chapters on frame composition and how to angle things to make them more dramatic, helping you to easily see what looks interesting as opposed to bland in comic books.