ideas to get you started
Be Brave Let's Draw
Some of you may be apprehensive about drawing figures, but if you use simple shapes as a foundation, you will have a great start.
Or trace figures that you find and adapt them for your purposes. Look for the right poses, or have friends or family pose for your photo.
Build a form made of simple shapes. Ovals always work for me.
On the right is a traced photo using pencil and tracing paper. a traditional method of working.
- stay curious
- be brave
- let the drawing evolve and suggest things to you
- imperfect drawings usually have more personality and emotion
- be surprised
I recommend the Lynda Barry book as she addresses many of the issues and phobias that undermine beginners, and I had a lot of fun trying some of her very quick assignments which help one evolve a personal style. This one, called “Monster Jam,” is on page 61 and entails drawing a set of 4 scribbles, then making those scribbles into monsters, and finally giving each something to say.
This was week 1 of my broken wrist, and provided great training to be a lefty!
The monster on the far right is a guy holding his hand up and saying, ” I think…’
FUSSy kills cartoons
Two more results of the Monster exercise and an experimental page done in Procreate .
And keep playing
If you want to work digitally, these apps might help
Storyboard That: a good place for ideas but limited. Free or a monthly fee. Someone using this would probably need to redraw it in their own hand to make it original work.
https://www.storyboardthat.com
Pixton is a non-threatening program and supposedly free, but it seemed like it might cost money to print the comic, or perhaps I didn’t experiment enough. Good for ideas that would require some redrawing in your own hand.
https://www.pixton.com
Comic Starters appears to be aimed at helping with a story line, storing and sparking the imagination. I have not tried it. There are drop down menus with ideas and it appears to be a free website.
https://www.pixton.com
The app called Canva is easy and somewhat free. There are readymade frames, speech balloons and so on; you can upload your own drawings. Consider their stock images for ideas and change things up. Fun but I couldn’t figure out how to print without a fee. You might have better luck. A purchase pack for the Revolutionary war is available.
https://www.canva.com
Comic Draw for iPad looks interesting, but I haven’t tried it yet.
free for 10 days
I can’t upload their address w/o an advertisement ..sorry
Medibang Paint for painting and manga is free. I haven’t yet tried it.
I can’t upload a link w/o their advert…
