New Years Resolution: Regarding Cynicism

Written on January 19, 2012 – 11:56 am by Ding

I dislike resolutions.  I dislike what they do to my brain the rest of the year.  If there is something worth making a resolution about then you probably shouldn’t have to wait until you start writing on a new calendar and you should instead just start doing it and the idea of New Years Resolutions makes me not want to start doing something until I get to a neat round number of a date.

It’s probably the same reason I strongly dislike Valentine’s day.  Someone can be a filthy scum-weasel to their significant other all year round and get a free pass if they take them to Paris on Februrary 14th.  Similar with “Christmas spirit” (as in good cheer, not drinking before noon), you should be a good and cheerful person all year round, not just when the world tells you to buy a few cards and presents.

With that being said, with 2012 rolling around, it got me thinking about what I would like to change about myself.  I considered that maybe doing a bit of exercise might be a good idea, drinking less would also be good and possibly being a little more generally organised in terms of diet and lifestyle, but to be honest I’m in a good place with all of that.  The thing that I really want to change is my attitude towards things.  It’s not that I have a particularly bad attitude towards life in general and I consider myself optimistic and irritatingly chirpy at times, but when it comes to media and entertainment, I have been passively brainwashed to hate and despise everything without giving it a fair chance.

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How To Make Comics Part 2

Written on August 13, 2011 – 10:30 am by Ding

How to Make Comics Part 2

 Using Photoshop or another piece of image manipulation software to colour or letter your comics is an entirely optional step.

At some point, you will probably benefit from getting your drawings into a digital format if you want to reproduce them at some point, but this can be a straight forward case of scanning them in and sending them on.

I’ve met plenty of comic creators who still use inks and paints to colour their comics and they produce some beautiful work.

On the other hand, I’m a digital junkie and also use my cartoons on this site, so I need mine uploaded to a web-publishable format and so it makes sense for me to colour them in Photoshop.

In this post, I am going to take you through the steps that I go through to get my tortoises coloured in.

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How to Make Comics Part 1

Written on August 12, 2011 – 1:30 pm by Ding

I have picked up my fair share of “how to draw comics” books that purport to tell you all there is to know about making comics in the vain hope that by reading about making comics, I will become really good at it.  These are the type of Teach Yourslef books that instruct you in the manner of creating sequential art and tend to start with the materials that you need and build from there.

Although I have several books that vary in quality, they all have something in common:  They have all universally intimidated me in terms of the materials needed to the point that it has often scared me away from doing any significant practise.

My message to anyone who wants to draw cartoons, comics or just general illustrations is to follow the only piece of advice that I have found works for me.  Practise.  Just get on and draw something.

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