A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I created this strip from my Arthur character for the sci-fi magazines, Starlog in particular. But it didn’t fly but did end up in a couple of publications and now here.

Next I take my mockup of the toon and put it back on the good old lightbox and begin to ink it in. This time being maticulous with the lines getting the weight I want in the strokes. I use the Faber-Castell Pitt brush pen for this. Oh I forgot to say that I draw my finished cartoon on Stathmore Bristol vellum 11×14 getting two toon per page and cut them down. Once I draw them still thinking of what to use as a background, and yes I am a glutton for punishment doing the coloring and background this way because it takes longer but I will explain in the coloring blog. anywho. Once I have done all this fitle-farting around and the art is finished I slap that baby on my scanner and scan them in at 300 ppi.

inked toon

original idea sketch

As I have said before I carry around a sketch book which I use to put most of my ideas. this is the barn cartoon for over exposure, I got the idea when my family and I were traveling around upstate NY and I have always loved the look of old barns. anywho, this is the scanned idea that I use to draw the next step which I will call the first draft. where I use this as a template for my sketchie version of the strip into the strip box, for placement and sizing.

over exposure

in this version I have fixed the position of Betty the cow and the barn. I also use this version to look at the dialog and rewrite if needed. and started to think about what colors I am going to use and what I will use as the deep background. which here I started to think about using one of my actual pictures for the skies, because as a real photo geek I have a vast archive of photos with this in mind.

I have carried around a sketch book with me forever so when and idea hits I don’t have to draw it on a napkin, except at Yetti’s restaurant where I draw on the place mats. So in this book I have from the beginnings of ideas to full drawn strips and i usually use my handy-dandy Bic ball point pens i have stolen from hotel rooms in my travels, the best one seem to be from the Army Loges, go figure! As I sit in my studio I quickly mock up a strip box 4″x13″ on scrap 11×14 which I can draw two and then go on to redrawing my cartoon from my sketchbook. and like I said some of the toons are already drawn out in my book and make a copy of the page and use the lightbox to draw up the next-to-final cartoon. paying attention to placement of characters and where the word balloons will go.

Pope's Puns Book Cover

“Pope’s Puns” book 2 “Above and Beyond is selling at my studio site at wcpope.com for $20 postpaid and there is a link there on the right column, just click and it will take you to the paypal checkout. While supplies last I will throw in a free Pope’s Puns Patch for all you fans out there. Oh, yes and I will personally sign each copy. There is a limited print run of these so get your order in soon!

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csppi

Tools ‹ Pope’s Puns — WordPress.

Not only am I a cartoonist and artist I love all this computer geek stuff! I came across this free piece of software that is really cool for creating “art” from you photos, in perticular the pen and ink cross hatching grabbed me! Fantastic! Looks like a real, drawn illo!

http://fotosketcher.com/