Caricature Workshop with John McColloch

Announcement! Because this is awesome and I will be there and our wonderful partner in crime (really in publishing and other art endeavours), Egress Studio, is hosting this.

Date: Saturday, May 25, 2013
Time: 1:00 – 4:00
Where: Egress Studio, Bellingham, WA
To register, please send $50 to "Egress Studio," 5581 Noon Road, Bellingham WA 98226.

Learn from John McColloch how to create caricatures and be the life of any party! Caricatures are a grand old tradition of satirical portrait that simplify and exaggerate the subject’s features. Caricatures can be an insult or a compliment to serve a political purpose or solely for entertainment. John will demonstratem how to draw interesting caricatures outside the bounds of the modern street-style of big head/little body. 

In the workshop, John will teach you how to draw caricatures. You will learn what types of tools to use. Caricatures are often done out and about so you will often need tools that travel well. He will also show you how to engage the person you are drawing and get them involved. Engaging the person will help you to draw a more personal caricature. One very important lesson is how to draw someone without getting punched in the face afterwards. Finally, it is always important to know what to do when something inevitably goes wrong. 

John is an illustrator with over 30 years experience in both traditional and digital media. He staffed a caricaturist booth for several years with a comic-book group in Denver, Co. They created what they referred to as "comic-a-tures”: caricatures in the form of a comic strip. John is a published cartoonist and comic book artist. Over the years, he has been a production artist for a major metro newspaper, The Rock Mountain News; a graphics Illustrator for the U.S. Air Force; an interactive media developer for online education; a multimedia artist at Talking Dog Media, where it was encouraged to bring your dog to work; and an artist for a gaming company that specialized in localizing games for foreign and local markets. He currently runs his own business, Johnny Mac Studios, where his clients include Starbucks, Microsoft, Getty Images, and Precor. 

A little update.

Hi everyone. I posted the first The Jerks comic on it's new home here on blogger. You can read it at http://thejerkscomic.blogspot.com/ for now. In the near future we're going to make it so the domain the-jerks.com points to the blogger site.

We'll be working on beautifying the new blogger hosted sites here for a little while so please be tolerant of any odd things you bump into here. It just means we are trying something out!

--Abe

Website troubles

So we are having troubles with our WordPress Sites. Because of that, we are switching to blogger. Let's so how it goes. I will add all the old blogs when we find them...

ECCC 2013

It’s a little late to post about, but Angela had a great time walking around Emerald City ComiCon. She says she wussed out only being able to last 6 instead of the whole 9 hours. She handed out a comic that we will post here soon.

Here are some highlights. This is our way of telling you all the cool things you should check out. But first, some warnings. This is what happens when not only are all the pictures taken by Angela on her phone, but then she cleans them up to post. Abe is usually in charge of that crap.

Also, this was the only cosplay Angela captured on camera because it was too weird not to.

Anyways, on to the cool stuff. Tinplate studios has great jewelry with eyeballs! Even better,Travesty in a Tea Cup! Seriously, creepy stuff. Check it out. They all look great.

Wool Buddy has adorable felted creatures. And a huge felted T-Rex! Like 2.5 feet tall. Angela should have taken a picture.

Angela got this adorable piece of art that reminds her once again to always grab a business card and keep it with the art. Come on artists! Always put your contact info on everything for us poor idiotic slobs who buy your lovely art and want more! But through a little research, I think it is Phil McAndrews.

Angela dorked out over Yuko and only just now realized she didn’t even get to see Emily Caroll. What an idiot! Angela loves Emily Caroll’s work. Anways, she blubbered over Yuko, showing her that the bag she brought to ECCC was the tote from their Kickstarter and drooling over the dream curry recipe. Yuko must have pitied her and gave her a sweet Johnny Wander metallic sticker.

Angela also told Dylan Meconis how awesome her books from Kickstarter (like Bite Me!) were and Dylan sweetly gave her a chicken sticker. She gave them to all Kickstarter donators who stopped by.

Let me make this short. Angela told Mike Holmes how much she enjoyed his blog. She toldNoelle Stevenson how much she loves Nimona, which just won Best Web Comic of the Year. Noelle seemed super excited to hear that since she was at the KaBoom booth for working on their books. Angela told Jason Brubaker how beautiful reMIND is. She told Erika Moen all sorts of stuff about how awesome she is, like being in Strip Search, the Penny Arcade reality show for web cartoonists. And she told Jonathan Case how Dear Creature saved her from hating comics after reading DC’s 52 story arc.

Angela also got some great stuff.

Books:

• Burn by Camilla d’Errico
• Elfworld volume 1, an anthology by Family Style
• Wasted Talent, Vol. 1 by Angela Melick – She signed it for her and was totally awesome.
• Mice Templar, Vol 2.1, which Bryan Glass (twitter), the writer, signed
• Runner Runner, a free sample from Tug Boat Press (twitter)
• City of Cards, Issue 1, by CJ Joughin
• Tag Sampler by a bunch of guys, but the two selling it were awesome and signed and doodled in the book. Love it.
• The Goon #40 by Eric Powell (twitter), a free copy from Dark Horse that Eric Powell signed for me.
• The three Flaccid Badger minis by Cat Farris which are worth every penny at $1 each. So cute. Angela was hard pressed to pick a favorite, but she eventually picked Ninja Assassin.

Art!

• Poe by Ben Templesmith, who is just lovely. He was very nice. Angela got to watch him paint for a bit, which was awesome.
• Poetry broadside by Jonathan Case for his Dear Creature
• Captain Picard and his love of Earl Gray by Cat Farris
• Two robots in love by Katie Cook
• Tiny art by Janet Lee (twitter+), the artist of Return of the Dappermen

Other Goodies!

• Dr. Who shirt
• Mouse Guard shirt
• Sock Dreams socks
• Batman earrings
• Batgirl PJs
• Batman bag

Highlight of the show:

Ernie and Nisa portrait by Katie Cook!

After the show, Angela waited for Abe to pick her up and drank hot chocolate. She left when she did because she couldn’t carry any more stuff and her dogs were barking.

The Saddest Sasquatch online

I am very happy to announce that The Saddest Sasquatch is available to read for free on the web! It is one of our most popular comics so now you can enjoy it in all its glory from any location. It is a tiny little web site, but we hope to expand it with more tales of the saddest Sasquatch this year.

Remember you can buy it in two formats. A tiny little comic book, or a gigantic poster that would look just lovely on that wall behind you.

Gertrude published in inkt|art

Brief public announcement. Angela has five Gertrude comics in the premier issue of inkt|art. It’s brilliant. There are even two brand-spanking new comics.

It really is pretty awesome news.

Within a week, we should have prints of all the Gertrude comics available in our Etsy store.

Drawing with Ink

Angela recently took a class on inking from Nils Osmar (actually, it was in November) and I thought now would be a good time to gather our collected knowledge. So here goes.

Inks

Angela has used a few different black inks. Sumi is a great color of black and you can buy great big bottles. It is water soluable, so you can make any gray you need. It is not waterproof though, so if you are using it with watercolors, you must do the watercolor and ink it after it dries.

There is also India ink, which is waterproof. Angela’s preference is for Speedball. The Higgens and the Pen & Ink are too gray and tend to spider easily. Of course. There are many more inks and these are just Angela’s experiences.

Graphic Pen

This is a lot like a fat technical pen with the capability for my dynamics. I haven’t used it much, but it actually gives a look I like a lot. Especially when used to feather or lightly hatch. They seem to come in different sizes. The one Angela has is a 1, that is 1.0mm.

Lady drawn in a graphic pen

Technical Pen

Angela uses Rapidograph pens an awful lot. They are great because you can refill them so they are a little “greener” than other technical pens, like the Copic Multiliner and the Pigma pens. However, sometimes the Rapidographs leak. Angela doesn’t mind as she seems to like having ink on her fingers. The Rapidograph is filled with a particular ink that comes in a little squirt bottle.

The sizes of the nibs range from fine to thick but the line it draws is not really variable. To change the line thickness, you must change pens. Angela uses the Rapidographs fro hatching. On The Jerks and most others, she uses a size 1 for borders, text, and the outline of main characters; 0 for faces and clothes and foreground items; 00 for background outlines and detail; and 000 for hatching.

Rapidograph drawing of a lady

Brush Pen

Supposedly, the brush pen is not as dynamic as an actual brush. But the brush pen is very travelable. I like the brush pens a lot. You can fill a water brush pen with sumi ink for a fairly dynamic line. Even better, you can mix the sumi ink with water to get a gray ink.
The Pentel Pocket Brush is quite nice and seems to be a popular one among cartoonists. You can refill the cartridges too. The ink you use to refill the Rapidograph pens works to refill the Pentel Pocket Brush cartridges. Or you can buy more cartridges. I like the ink that comes in the cartridges.

Brush

The brush is quite lovely to use but requires refilling quite often. From what I hear, to get really good at it, you need lots of practice. Angela will start practicing on Spaz Hands in a while, when her current notebook for Spaz Hands is full. The paper in the current sketch book is too rough.

From her class with Nils, Angela finally learned how to fill a brush with ink. Poor a small amount of ink into something shallow. Like a watercolor tray or a medicine bottle lid. Then dip the tip into the ink and let it soak the ink up. As opposed to just dunking the brush in the ink bottle.

Lady drawn with a brush

Crow quill

These are the pen and nibs that Angela originally started working with. They are similar to a technical pen but more dynamic, depending on the nib. You have to dip them, similar to using a brush. Angela switched to the Rapidographs because she got sick of dipping.
The other problem is that a sharp nib can get stuck in the paper and splash ink everywhere.

When you first buy a nib, you have to prepare it. From the factory, it comes with an oil on it that you will want to remove before using ink. There are a couple methods we have heard of. You can soak it in vinegar for 5 minutes. But if you leave it in too long (like 30 minutes), you can ruin the nib. The vinegar will eat right at the metal. Or you can hold it in the flame of a match for a few seconds. Just a few. And don’t burn your fingers.

Fountain pen

Angela has an awesome Noodlers Inc fountain pen. Talking to the sales lady at the UW Art Store, she said the pen Angela got is one of the only fountain pens that comes with a flexible nib, which makes it great for art. The ink comes out a little sporadically  but she is probably still learning. It is super easy to refill. Two pumps of the piston with the nib dipped in Noodlers ink. And you can replace the nibs.

Happy New Year’s dodo birds drawn with a fountain pen

Hatching

Hatching is a way to make “gray” when using just black and white. Like the shadows on The Jerks. I suppose, technically, The Jerks is an example of cross-hatching because the lines go in two directions across each other.

You can do a graphic style where all the lines go in the same direction like you can see in The Jerks. Of you can do a more illustrative style where the hatching goes in all directions. The original illustrations of Alice in Wonderland are a good example of illustrative. The illustrative style is more difficult than I expected.

Feathering

Feathering is actually a simple idea. You create the brush strokes always in the direction of the light.

Three ways of shading a box