Experimenting with different fonts

This week on the cartoon course we are looking at fonts and lettering.

Today I am experimenting with using three different fonts for the same quotations. 

 

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1. This uses the ‘Chelsea Market’ font on the Sketches App for the iPad Pro.

 

 

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2. For this one I tried alternating upper and lower-case lettering. I’m not really happy with how this turned out.

 

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3. For this one Inused my own writing but trying to keep the shape of the letters more consistent. To achieve that I wrote slower than usual.

Lionel Peabody Characters

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Lionel Peabody 

Noted amateur naturalist Lionel Peabody has dedicated his life to the study of the natural world. While his methodology is sometimes unconventional, and his frequent absent-mindness hampers things somewhat, he has discovered many new species and championed the protection of many endangered ones. 

Lionel is pretty much immune to whatever the weather throws at him. This might be partly due to the fact that he is so focused on his studies that he simply ignores whatever the current conditions. He can usually be found wearing his sandals and trusty bobble hat come rain or shine. 

He has remained fiercely independent of academia and big organizations. 

 

 Reggie the Honey Badger

Rescued as a cub by Lionel, Reggie accompanies Lionel wherever he goes. Like all honey badgers, Reggie is fearless, and is fiercely protective towards Lionel. Reggie regards Lionel as “the Guvnor”, whose heart is in the right place when it comes to animals. 

 

 Gladys Peabody

Gladys is Lionel’s wife. She runs a natural history bookshop/petshop which helps to support Lionel’s expeditions. The shop should really have been shut down by now due to health and safety issues, however the inspectors daren’t venture inside for fear of being eaten by one of the creatures lurking inside. Gladys sometimes joins Lionel on expedition, but isn’t quite as immune to intemperate weather conditions as her husband.

 

 Suki

Sukinis Lionel and Gladys’ niece. She is currently studying marine biology at university and often joins Lionel on expedition during vacation time. She also works part-time at Gladys’ shop.  

She is a keen angler. 

 

Horrace the Sea Otter

Suki found Horace washed up on the beach when he was a cub and nursed back to health. Seeing as Suki is studying marine biology and thus spends a lot of time either or near the water, he has proved to be a most useful companion. 

 

 The elusive Pink-Spotted Mountain Cat

The one species that Lionel desires to spot more than any other, the Mountain Cat has so far far lived up to it’s name and remained very elusive.

The Northern Boot Crab

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Seeing as the search for the elusive Pink-Spotted Mountain Cat had so far proved fruitless, Lionel Peabody, accompanied as ever by his loyal companion Reggie the honey badger, along with his niece Suki, decided to take a couple of days break at the coast.

Lionel thought this would be an ideal chance to check out the local shellfish and Suki fancied a spot of fishing. By pure accident Suki managed to catch a fine specimen of the Northern Boot Crab, which had grasped onto the bait she was using to attempt to catch fish.

The Boot Crab is a sub-species of hermit crabs, and like it’s relative lacks a shell of it’s own, and thus has to seek shelter in alternative abodes. What makes the Boot Crab unique is it’s preference of utilizing abandoned footwear. Boots of plastic or rubber are preferred due to leathers propensity to disintegrate more rapidly when exposed to seawater.

At a pinch, Boot Crabs will make do with sports shoes, and one specimen was even found in 1973 inhabiting the left foot of a tap dancing shoe.

From sketch to completed drawing

The Northern Boot-Crab

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This is the sketch initial idea. Suki is holding up a crab, Lionel is snorkeling, and Reggie is being nipped on either the tail or the nose by a crab. I also had the idea of adding a cat’s paw reaching in to steal a fish. This picture is part of the series “The Search for the Pink-Spotted Mountain Cat”, and so I was originally intending for the cat to appear in some shape and form in every frame. In this case I thought I’d give the cat the day off as the picture was already looking a bit busy.

 

 

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I’ve now drawn the initial outline. I copied the pose for Suki from a picture of a woman holding a fish, which I then swapped out for a crab.

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The boot crab has now been added, along with starting to colour the characters.

 

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The basic colouring is now completed.

 

 

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I thought the sea needed darkening, I also increased the range of tones on Suki.

 

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The finished cartoon.

 

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I added the elusive Pink-Spotted Mountain Cat in the background. I also experimented with a different font.

From sketch to completed drawing - The Crested Gibbering Newt

The Crested Gibbering Newt.

This is a new series showing the initial sketch when the idea was formed and then the completed drawing.

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Here is the first rough sketch, which I doodled on the train. This is following on from a series “Searching for the Pink-Spotted Mountain Cat”. 

 

 

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The characters are now in place and I’ve started colouring in. The background has also been outlined. 

 

 

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After finishing the picture, I got some feedback to improve it further: 

 There water and the sky are very similar colour-wise. You can get away with making the river a lot darker and blue-green to the edges, and being more selective with the reflections on it. Remember that the reflections will be the colour of the objects reflected, so you have some flexibility with whether they are all white or not.

 

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Here is the cartoon with the alterations as per the suggestions.

The Crested Gibbering Newt

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Continuing on the search for the elusive Pink-spotted Mountain Cat, noted amateur naturalist Lionel Peabody and his niece, Suki, moved ever-deeper into the wilderness. Joining them, as always, was the ever-loyal Reggie the honey badger.

It was while fording a mountain stream that Suki encountered another rare species - The Crested Gibbering Newt. This particularly perculiar newt is only found in a few remote mountainous habits and is content to dwell an altitude far higher than other amphibians. 

George Hwoop, studied the collection of unusual sounds that the newt emits, and finally concluded after forty years of investigation that he didn’t have the slightest notion what they were carrying on about. He later quit zoology to open a fried lettuce stall in Hamburg.

Drawing ‘a visit by a flock of Blue-breasted Belchards’

In this post I’ll talk through how I created the recent cartoon below. 

 

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Here is the cartoon which appeared in a previous post. The characters featured are Lionel Peabody, noted amateur naturalist, who is accompanied everywhere by his faithful companion Reggie the honey badger. Lionel and Reggie have appeared in several previous cartoons, often in search of rare and unusual species. 

For this cartoon I wanted to add a third character, Lionel’s niece, who has actually appeared in one previous cartoon with the pair. I wanted to experiment with the dynamic of adding a third character with a very different personality to Lionel to the strip. 

The previous cartoon they appeared in was:

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Which also introduced the elusive Pink-spotted mountain cat.

For the background for the new pic I was watching around for a background of a winding river or stream, but eventually decided to reuse the background from a previous cartoon:

 

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And here is the background I thought I’d modify to look like a river:

 

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For Suki sitting one the log, I thought thatI would modify a different character used in a previous cartoon. 

 

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This is Italian movie star Luisa Mentolo, with a shoeshine terrier. The full story of the shoeshine terrier can be found here:

 http://www.everyonelovescartoons.com/blog/2018/2/26/lesser-known-dog-breeds-the-shoeshine-terrier

Reggie the honey badgers pose was modified from the previous picture featuring the mountain cat. 

I originally thought of having a group of crows up to mischief, but instead decided to come up with a different bird species. The idea being that during their search for the elusive Pink-spotted Mountain Cat, they discover other unusual and bizarre creatures along the way. 

I might modify the cartoon a bit further, but I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out so far.

A visit by a flock of Blue-breasted Belchards

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The search for the elusive Pink-spotted Mountain Cat continues.

Noted naturalist Lionel Peabody, accompanied by his faithful companion Reggie the honey badger, and joined also by his niece Suki, continue their search for the elusive Pink-spotted Mountain Cat.

While stopping to have lunch by a stream, Lionel and Suki were visited by a flock of Blue-breasted Belchards, who proceed to try and scrounge something to eat.

The Belchard is a species of bird almost permanently afflicted by gastritis which accounts  for the ongoing burping sounds that the bird emits. The Belchards diet is fairly appalling, being willing to eat pretty much anything, but in particular favors poisonous mushrooms, old toads, and pickled onions.

The Belchard was discovered in 1923 by amateur Austrian ornithologist, Hans Vordermemory. Hans kept several of the birds in his home as pets so that he could study them at close-quarters. Through extensive practice, Hans found that he was able to imitate the birds unique call and to strike up basic communication with them. In 1925 Mrs. Vordermemory banished the birds to the garden shed, and one year later her husband as well.

It is related to the crow family, but most respectable crows would certainly deny it. Although referred to here as a flock, the actual correct name for a collective of this species is ‘a gas of Belchards.’