Drawlloween Highlights

Trick 'R' Treat!

Like you, I'm hesitantly acclimating to the horrors of the new normal (without pretending there's anything normal about it).  I find myself wistfully looking back on a simpler time-- last month-- when I allowed myself the fun of indulging in some fake horror: the annual Drawlloween & Inktober challenges.

Hurrying to post an ink drawing on an assigned theme every day proved a refresher course in the many ways an image can go south from concept to finish, and in the ways things go wrong at the last minute-- train delays, unresponsive computers, and other interruptions. A few of the pictures posted past midnight into the next day. But it was great for warming up, trying techniques, and developing spontaneity. I surprised myself more than once.

The drawings? There were weird ones,...

Thursday the Thirteenth

They Came from Outer Space! (Inktober: "Box")

Mechanical Monstrosity

wild ones,...

Full Moon!

Superstition Sunday

Demonday

Horses & Headless Men

sad ones,...

Drive-In Creature Feature

Scarecrow Row

Black Caturday

girly ones,...

8 Legs, 1,000 Eggs

Ghosts-A-Go-Go

Witchcraft Wednesday ("flight")

silly ones,...

Slimy Swamps, Foggy Bogs

Call of C'Thursday (Inktober: "Creepy")

& even a self-aggrandizing one.

Phantom Phriday ("Big")

But then, god help us, one of these nightmares came true:

Nosfera-Tuesday

Drawlloween Day 2

"Carnival Creeps"

Drawlloween 1

#drawlloween2016

#inktober2016

What are your plans for Inktober?

A drawing I made during a demo on inking basics on the first day of my Cartooning Basics course. I always cover ink right away, so the students will appreciate what their penciling decisions are for.

#Inktober is a hashtag that's been running for a couple of years now on social media. Artists interested in mastering ink technique use the occasion to push themselves to create and post one ink drawing per day for one month. In my case it means adding a hashtag to the ink drawings I post twice a day all year, but whatever.

It's striking that despite continuing advances in digital media, ink drawing thus far remains the primary medium for cartoonists. Even those making comics on tablets need to understand brush and ink, as it's the look their cursors are designed to mimic.

This year, there appears another hashtag challenge for October, #Drawlloween2016:

I think I'll give this a shot, using ink, of course. Please follow my Tumblr and see how I'm doing.

Continuing my roundup of recent student work, I'm quite sure these gentleman will fill their Octobers with exciting panels and pages:

Geoffrey Class sent his two page final from Inking Comics. Nice, eh?

Self taught neurosurgeon, Justin Peele sends the first three pages of a new story in color,  "JoJo and Lars Get Yeezys." Follow the link to see more of his timely, hilarious ink work

 

The biggest reason to learn cartooning is that it provides a way to get your funny (or otherwise) ideas  down on paper. Peter Yuschak routinely sends spontaneous gag cartoons to his network of friends.

Joe Wessely works constantly at making comics and filling his sketchbook. He also cohosts the Comics for Grownups podcast, with Josh Malbin and Alex Rothman.

I cover inking in all 3 of my cartooning courses at SVA. They start this week, making this the last chance to enroll for fall. Embrace the challenge.

Here are views of the final critique in the Figure Drawing for Cartoonists course last summer. A lot of nice inking, am I right?

Aline the Alien collection for SPX

I remade this page for the new collection. I think it works much better than the first version. 

I'll be at SPX this weekend, at the Cartozia Tales table, L1-2A, and I'm bringing a small number of copies of this new collection of Aline the Alien Miscadventures. Catch 'em before they're gone.

Continuing Continuing Ed Continued

Rik Sansone's tribute to Gene Wilder

I teach in a lot of settings: undergraduate programs, elementary schools, community centers, ... and my clear favorite is always the Continuing Education market. There you meet adults with interests, careers, & life experiences that give immeasurable richness to the work they do in class. They arrive with varying levels of artistic ability, but the skills they have and acquire are put to great use. Moreover, they're people you're simply glad to have met.

Last spring, I was treated to the best Father's Day ever when my kids and I saw Noah Diamond's astonishingly hilarious, copiously researched resurrection of the lost Marx Brothers play, "I'll Say She Is." I was overjoyed to see that they had a comic book there about the history of the play and that it was by a former student of mine, Rik Sansone.



Rik publishes Spaz Comics. The Marx Brothers comic is available there for free download.



Nicolas Douillet's day job is with the United Nations. He's currently in Istanbul, hard at work on a graphic memoir about his time fighting ebola in Africa.

(c) Nico Douillet 2016

Illustrator Charles Truett is also busy, creating marvelous digital images.

(c) Charles Truett 2016

(c) Charles Truett 2016

Paul Centrone has been moving from cartoons to portraits. In my classes Paul created lovely comics about his character, Detlef:

(c) Paul Centrone 2016

Here are some caricature inflected portrait sketches Paul made at a recent performance of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Since I last checked in on Jeremy Fuscaldo, he's been moving in the direction of Cartoon Modernism:

And Earl Barrett-Holloway is blazing away at The Squid #4. Here's a teaser and a recent promotional design.

(c) Earl Barrett-Holloway 2016

It's supremely satisfying watching artists I've helped continue to develop their craft and get their stories out into the world. 

Time's running out to register for fall classes at SVA. Figure Drawing for Cartoonists begins Wednesday 9/21, Cartooning Basics begins Thursday 9/22, and Inking Comics begins Friday 9/23.

Continuing Continuing Ed is...              ...to be continued!