http://comic.socksandpuppets.com en-gb David Birch Copyright 2008 David Birch 2009-12-29T00:00:00+00:00 daily 8 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-12-29 Now Joey has the present, I can show pictures of it on the web. I really need to fiddle this site to center images... but I have no idea how to do that. http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=180
Now Joey has the present, I can show pictures of it on the web.

I really need to fiddle this site to center images... but I have no idea how to do that. ]]> 2009-12-29T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-12-04 Note to self. This is not acceptable behaviour with strangers. http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=179
Note to self. This is not acceptable behaviour with strangers. ]]> 2009-12-04T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-14 I love how the form that you have to print out and mail to them has a little disclaimer on the top saying "Do it online!" - the address given leads you to the series of online forms that mandates you print it out and mail to them. Yes, all they want from this form is for me to mail them my signature. I also really love the section "what if I don't have a printer?" - The advice given is "Go and find a printer" I also love how the form you fill out to get a driving license and the form you fill out to become an organ donor have been merged. http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=178
I love how the form that you have to print out and mail to them has a little disclaimer on the top saying "Do it online!" - the address given leads you to the series of online forms that mandates you print it out and mail to them.

Yes, all they want from this form is for me to mail them my signature.

I also really love the section "what if I don't have a printer?" - The advice given is "Go and find a printer"

I also love how the form you fill out to get a driving license and the form you fill out to become an organ donor have been merged. ]]> 2009-11-14T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-07 I shade my pictures with the same 2H technical pencil I draw them with. This is probably not recommended, but hey, it's all good. The size of pigment liner I use varies heavily depending on the size of the image. For normal outlining, I'll generally use a 0.1mm pigment liner if the figure is between 1 and 3 inches tall, and a 0.2mm liner if they're taller than that. For fine details, I 'll use a 0.05mm pigment liner, but they tend to get destroyed rather quickly. Pigment liners are my pen of choice, because the ink doesn't smudge, and it's very black, meaning I can boost the contrast of my scanned image (After rubbing out the lines) to discard any remaining construction lines. You'll have seen in lots of these scans a number of floating "error" lines, because most of these images have been pencil scans, and getting rid of those errors is pretty difficult without also getting rid of your picture. That's all there is for this edition of "how I draw stuff" - I hope it's been educational, and if you feel compelled to give it a try, send me pictures of how you did, I'm interested to know if this was helpful at all. http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=177
I shade my pictures with the same 2H technical pencil I draw them with. This is probably not recommended, but hey, it's all good.

The size of pigment liner I use varies heavily depending on the size of the image. For normal outlining, I'll generally use a 0.1mm pigment liner if the figure is between 1 and 3 inches tall, and a 0.2mm liner if they're taller than that. For fine details, I 'll use a 0.05mm pigment liner, but they tend to get destroyed rather quickly.

Pigment liners are my pen of choice, because the ink doesn't smudge, and it's very black, meaning I can boost the contrast of my scanned image (After rubbing out the lines) to discard any remaining construction lines. You'll have seen in lots of these scans a number of floating "error" lines, because most of these images have been pencil scans, and getting rid of those errors is pretty difficult without also getting rid of your picture.

That's all there is for this edition of "how I draw stuff" - I hope it's been educational, and if you feel compelled to give it a try, send me pictures of how you did, I'm interested to know if this was helpful at all. ]]> 2009-11-07T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-06 I wrote on this "because the head is bigger, there should be lots of space" By this, I mean that your heads should be a lot larger than they weer last time you drew an entire person, so your person will need to be bigger to compensate, and as such there should be space for detailing. I've seen a lot of books that talk about drawing people in terms of how many "heads" tall they are. A chibi should be about 3 heads tall in total, and you can split that quite nicely into "head, torso, legs" For drawing the body, the first thing I did here was split it up into obvious sections. Once I'd drawn those, I just added each of the details you see over the top in slightly heavier pencil. Once you have the body shape, drawing clothes onto it is fairly simple. If you managed this, then you've got all you need to draw some pretty decent cartoons. - If you want to go for more realistic people, then just increase the number of "heads" tall they are. A full person should be anywhere between 5 and 7 heads tall. (People are rather variable) If you're drawing a character regularly for a comic, I would strongly recommend a simpler hairstyle than Piccolo's. http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=176
I wrote on this "because the head is bigger, there should be lots of space" By this, I mean that your heads should be a lot larger than they weer last time you drew an entire person, so your person will need to be bigger to compensate, and as such there should be space for detailing.

I've seen a lot of books that talk about drawing people in terms of how many "heads" tall they are. A chibi should be about 3 heads tall in total, and you can split that quite nicely into "head, torso, legs"

For drawing the body, the first thing I did here was split it up into obvious sections. Once I'd drawn those, I just added each of the details you see over the top in slightly heavier pencil. Once you have the body shape, drawing clothes onto it is fairly simple.

If you managed this, then you've got all you need to draw some pretty decent cartoons. - If you want to go for more realistic people, then just increase the number of "heads" tall they are. A full person should be anywhere between 5 and 7 heads tall. (People are rather variable)

If you're drawing a character regularly for a comic, I would strongly recommend a simpler hairstyle than Piccolo's. ]]> 2009-11-06T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-05 For me, this is the big one. If you get this down, you can draw really expressive people. Eyes are important. I draw them first because they have so much of an effect on how the person looks. Try this image for a few examples of different expressions. You'll notice that I don't usually draw ears or noses, and that my mouths are almost always a single line. That makes drawing the face pretty easy, because there's a lot less to mess up. "Tidy up the edge of the face" is a bit of a cop out here, because there's so much variation available. Drawing the face within a circle is a good way to get a feel for where the face should be, but a person's chinline can be hugely variable. Young people and childen tend to work well with a more circular face, whereas a long thin face tends to work better on older people. For simple faces, a good start is to make the head into an irregular pentagon, like this. The hairline will of course cover some of these lines. For more manly faces, hake the jawline wider and the forehead more narrow. For more girly faces, make the forehead wider, and the jawline narrower. As you turn your towards profile, then the side of the chin that you're seeing less of should become more vertical, and the side you're seeing more of should become more horizontal. If in doubt, I recommend just sketching an outline lightly, and then erasing and re-drawing until you like it. http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=175
For me, this is the big one. If you get this down, you can draw really expressive people.

Eyes are important. I draw them first because they have so much of an effect on how the person looks. Try this image for a few examples of different expressions.

You'll notice that I don't usually draw ears or noses, and that my mouths are almost always a single line. That makes drawing the face pretty easy, because there's a lot less to mess up.

"Tidy up the edge of the face" is a bit of a cop out here, because there's so much variation available. Drawing the face within a circle is a good way to get a feel for where the face should be, but a person's chinline can be hugely variable. Young people and childen tend to work well with a more circular face, whereas a long thin face tends to work better on older people.

For simple faces, a good start is to make the head into an irregular pentagon, like this. The hairline will of course cover some of these lines. For more manly faces, hake the jawline wider and the forehead more narrow. For more girly faces, make the forehead wider, and the jawline narrower.

As you turn your towards profile, then the side of the chin that you're seeing less of should become more vertical, and the side you're seeing more of should become more horizontal.

If in doubt, I recommend just sketching an outline lightly, and then erasing and re-drawing until you like it. ]]> 2009-11-05T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-04 Skirts are easier to draw than trousers, because you don't need to worry about the shape of your character around the pelvis area. I find that joints are one of the most complicated parts of a person to draw, and it's taking to make it look like anything other than a body with some limbs randomly glued to it. With a skirt, you can just poke the ends of your legs out, and you're done though. The people you're drawing in this style should start out at least an inch tall, and as you practice, move towards getting up to two inches. You'll find that the larger you draw someone, the more out-of-proportion parts of them will look, but the more space you'll have to draw details on. Ideally you should always draw your person as large as you can get away with, to provide as much room for detailing as possible. You'll notice that all of the people I draw in this guide are either facing the "camera" or turned slightly to one side. The reason for this is because these are the ideal perspectives for drawing comics. You rarely need to draw somebody completely side-on, and that's also a fair bit more difficult to do (in my opinion.) By this time, you may be sitting there thinking "well, I think I can draw these, but I don't know what I want to draw!" - if this is the case, then you're thinking about it wrong, it doesn't matter what your characters are doing, just draw! - here are some things to put on paper. Several people fleeing a monster A sword fight, a game of hide-and-seek, a dance routine A tea party A mad scientist testing various death rays on various people etc etc http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=174
Skirts are easier to draw than trousers, because you don't need to worry about the shape of your character around the pelvis area. I find that joints are one of the most complicated parts of a person to draw, and it's taking to make it look like anything other than a body with some limbs randomly glued to it. With a skirt, you can just poke the ends of your legs out, and you're done though.

The people you're drawing in this style should start out at least an inch tall, and as you practice, move towards getting up to two inches. You'll find that the larger you draw someone, the more out-of-proportion parts of them will look, but the more space you'll have to draw details on. Ideally you should always draw your person as large as you can get away with, to provide as much room for detailing as possible.

You'll notice that all of the people I draw in this guide are either facing the "camera" or turned slightly to one side. The reason for this is because these are the ideal perspectives for drawing comics. You rarely need to draw somebody completely side-on, and that's also a fair bit more difficult to do (in my opinion.)

By this time, you may be sitting there thinking "well, I think I can draw these, but I don't know what I want to draw!" - if this is the case, then you're thinking about it wrong, it doesn't matter what your characters are doing, just draw! - here are some things to put on paper.

• Several people fleeing a monster
• A sword fight, a game of hide-and-seek, a dance routine
• A tea party
• A mad scientist testing various death rays on various people
• etc etc

]]> 2009-11-04T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-03 If you're wondering what kind of pencil to use, then it doesn't really matter. Everyone I know uses a different pencil, so I guess it's a matter of taste. For sketching, I recommend a very hard pencil - 2H is my favourite. I use a 0.5mm 2H technical pencil to do all my sketching with. (It's a Rotring tikky graphic, very good.) - the fainter your lines are, the easier they are to rub out, and you'll find that you can draw a faint line, then go over it with a darker one if you want to adjust it a little. For hands, I really like just drawing a small circle, it tells you what space the hand occupies, and it's quite effective. When I wrote "perspective" here I meant looking at the person from a different perspective. This is all the detail you really need to draw "order of the stick" - which is a hugely successful webcomic. http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=173
If you're wondering what kind of pencil to use, then it doesn't really matter. Everyone I know uses a different pencil, so I guess it's a matter of taste.

For sketching, I recommend a very hard pencil - 2H is my favourite. I use a 0.5mm 2H technical pencil to do all my sketching with. (It's a Rotring tikky graphic, very good.) - the fainter your lines are, the easier they are to rub out, and you'll find that you can draw a faint line, then go over it with a darker one if you want to adjust it a little.

For hands, I really like just drawing a small circle, it tells you what space the hand occupies, and it's quite effective. When I wrote "perspective" here I meant looking at the person from a different perspective.

This is all the detail you really need to draw "order of the stick" - which is a hugely successful webcomic. ]]> 2009-11-03T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-02 The writing I fit in each image here should be enough to explain my point, but I'll throw a few additional comments in here if I have something to add (or somethign that'd take to much space in the image.) If you're following along with this guide, then you should practice drawing the kinds of things showing up on each day, until you find yourself comfortable doing it. In this case, I'd go as far as to fill a single sheet of A4 with little stickmen doing different things. If you do this, you'll get a better feel for where people's elbows and knees should be. (If you do this, send me a scan!) http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=172
The writing I fit in each image here should be enough to explain my point, but I'll throw a few additional comments in here if I have something to add (or somethign that'd take to much space in the image.)

If you're following along with this guide, then you should practice drawing the kinds of things showing up on each day, until you find yourself comfortable doing it.

In this case, I'd go as far as to fill a single sheet of A4 with little stickmen doing different things. If you do this, you'll get a better feel for where people's elbows and knees should be. (If you do this, send me a scan!) ]]> 2009-11-02T00:00:00+00:00 comics media http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?date=2009-11-01 People have been saying I should start up on S&P again, so I figure I'll get back to regular updates soon. Let's say we'll do one a week to start with. In the meantime, all this week, I'll be posting a quick image each day, that should serve as a quick guide to drawing little chibi characters, the kind that appear on Piccolo's power cards. I decided to draw out this guide after looking back through my archive. It seemed that I would draw in the same style for a while, showing minor continuous improvement, and after enough practice, jump to a new and more complicated style, then repeat. Looking through it has been a bit of an eye opener, because each of the shifts in my style were actually quite minor, and I think anyone willing to put some practice in could follow this guide along and (hopefully) improve from it. All you'll need is some cheap copier paper, a pencil and a rubber. And if you don't feel like giving it a try, it could be interesting to just follow along anyway :) http://comic.socksandpuppets.com/view.php?id=171
People have been saying I should start up on S&P again, so I figure I'll get back to regular updates soon. Let's say we'll do one a week to start with.

In the meantime, all this week, I'll be posting a quick image each day, that should serve as a quick guide to drawing little chibi characters, the kind that appear on Piccolo's power cards.

I decided to draw out this guide after looking back through my archive. It seemed that I would draw in the same style for a while, showing minor continuous improvement, and after enough practice, jump to a new and more complicated style, then repeat. Looking through it has been a bit of an eye opener, because each of the shifts in my style were actually quite minor, and I think anyone willing to put some practice in could follow this guide along and (hopefully) improve from it. All you'll need is some cheap copier paper, a pencil and a rubber.

And if you don't feel like giving it a try, it could be interesting to just follow along anyway :) ]]> 2009-11-01T00:00:00+00:00 comics media