Getting Started

I usually start with a sheet of heavy, 100 lb. bond paper, a #2 pencil and a block eraser, a pen holder and nibs, and a bottle of waterproof India ink. The nibs I use are varied and range from stiff crowquills for fine lines, to larger Hunts like the #512. So I don’t smear my pencil work and transfer oil to the paper, I use a brush for wiping away eraser dust. A handy roll of paper towels and or toilet paper is good for cleaning ink spills and wiping nibs when they clog.

A comfortable chair, a sturdy, adjustable drafting table, and good lighting are a must. One of the best investments I made when I started freelancing was a good drawing table. It’s heavy and infinitely adjustable in height and tilt. I’ve customized it by adding a rubber cutting surface to it, a full length front pencil tray and a side tray.

The first step in creating a cartoon is deciding what to draw. A large percentage of my cartoons come from suggestions and ideas that people have given me, or concepts clients require. When I am handed an open ended assignment giving me a bit of creative freedom, or just feel like creating a character for my own use, I try to think how to make it unique and fun. Not only fun to look at, but fun to draw. My goal is to find an unusual angle or pose that makes people look just a little bit longer.

Before starting a cartoon, I draw in my head as much as possible. Visualizing before I get to the drawing table makes getting started that much easier. If I’ve thought about the project for a while, set the composition in my head, and maybe even slept on it before picking up a pencil, I usually can’t wait to get started drawing. On occasion I will do a few thumbnail sketches on plain paper first, but somehow it seems most of my thumbnails end up as tight roughs.

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