A Cottage Cartoon (Marshtoon) for the April Newsletter

The deadline is fast approaching for the next cottage cartoon for the Lake Cecebe Waterways Association newsletter.  https://www.cecebewaterways.ca  

And so to work I went.  Ideas are my biggest issue and so I go through the cottage magazines about the house and websites about cottages.  Something often catches my curiosity and the idea is allowed to percolate awhile. Not too long -I have a deadline.

In the studio, and once I have an idea, I make some rough sketches of the main character.  I use the reference books I have to determine the shape of the animal and then work to create a cartoon character from the sketches.  I will do a number of these.

Then I add another character if necessary to complement the first and reinforce some attitude or look that I want.  Once the drawing is on its way  I use a table light to trace the drawing.  I check the line flow and spacing, keeping in mind the dialogue bubble that comes later.My lines must all connect and enclose the spaces because if I do not the fill option in my draw and paint program will run everywhere.

Now I scan the inked drawing and place it on my mac desktop for further work.

The scanned picture is opened in Seashore, a free, simple drawing program for the mac.  Once open, I fill with greys and adjust until the spaces in the cartoon create the harmony and emphasis I want.  Again I am aware that loose lines that look neat don't enclose the areas that I need to fill.  This creates a particular look to the cartoon.

This "greyed" picture is then saved to the desktop and given the next title in the sequence.  Sequencing an keeping the steps allow me to go back and redo at any step along the way.

I open Comiclife2, create a cartoon box and insert the jpeg marshtoon.  I often have to adjust the size of the cartoon and the box framing.  Finally, I add the text and dialogue bubble to complement the scene.  All is saved to the desktop as a jpeg in order to email it out.  I have exported to iPhoto from Comiclife2 and then put the photo of the cartoon onto the desktop.  Whatever gets my job done.

And, that's the procedure I use.  Works for me.

For the most part my marshtoons are meant to make the viewer muse and go hmmmm!