1/6/10

Today's jpost.com cartoon--and how it got there

Recently, Anonymous from Birmingham commented on one of the Post cartoons, wondering if I could show the process of creating one. I'm happy to oblige with my latest featured drawing!
Before starting, I read the morning paper and seeing if any of the articles' subjects happen to catch my eye. Sometimes it will be something as specific as Roger Waters telling Israel to remove the checkpoints; sometimes it will be something vaguer like Achmed Tibi's attendance at the Fatah GA. And sometimes it will be more general, like the Iranian threat, or today's subject: the settlement freeze, and the settlers' defiant fight against it.
Step 1: Visualization. Freeze... fight... aha! A freezer! And Netanyahu and Barak trying to contain within it the settlers who are trying to get loose.
Step 2: Rough Sketch, done in pencil. Each one takes up half an A4 sheet of paper. This one was a simple, uncluttered drawing.

Step 3: Initial Inking. I mostly use a 0.7mm pen, with a 0.4 for finer details and shading.

Step 4: Erasing and Final Inking. The pencil sketch is eradicated and final touches are added, such as in this one using white-out to deawkwardize Bibi's right leg.

Step 5: Scanning and Coloring. I finish up using the free Serif PhotoPlus software, as it is less cumbersome than Photoshop, whose dozens of extra features I don't need anyhow for this type of work.

And there you have it! A cartoon fit for print. Or perhaps just online display. Or not even that. Whatever. Ta-da!

UPDATE: The finished cartoon was also featured on La Boucle d'Occam.

Drawn using:
No. 2 pencil (sketch)
Blue 0.4 mm pilot pen
Blue 0.7 mm pilot pen
Serif PhotoPlus 6.0

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