This is the first of a small series about how I do my own cartoons. For those of you who’d like it in black and white, here’s the plan.

1. I scribble on layout paper, or any handy piece of paper, the first idea.
2. If that works out ok, and I think the idea is worth taking further then I go over the first drawing on layout paper.
3. If I think it still has legs then I redraw, again on layout paper. I don’t use pencils and stick to black Pentel Sign pens, pens I’ve been using for many years. They are cheap and degrade nicely! Pentel Sign Pens
4. For large areas of black I might even use thick permanent markers to draw with. I quite like the very large Pilot Super Colour Markers. Black only. Beware though, if you are going to put any half tone on these in charcoal or pastel, which is something that I sometimes do, then the pilot marker areas will ‘bleed’ a little if you happen to use fixative. I’ll be doing a little video of this part later on in the series.

So there you have it to the first part of the little video. I hope you find it interesting, if you have any questions then feel free to get in touch. The next one will take it to the finished line drawing. The final one will explain how I apply half tone to my drawings.

I don’t do colour by hand, any colour that I might add to a drawing would be added in digital format. I tend to prefer black and white drawings.

The drawing below is the one I’m working on in the little video:

Finished drawings of this series are available as prints from here.