DaniDraws.com

At first, drawing children doesn’t seem like that much of a challenge. I mean, you take so many figure drawing courses in art school and you start to think you can draw pretty good. And if you’re good at drawing adults, drawing kids should be pretty easy, right? Well, after you’ve tried dozens and dozens of times, and all you come up with are a bunch of freaky midget creatures, you start to realize how wrong you were.

I realized this shortly after I graduated from school and decided to go into children’s publishing. My first assignments were, I admit, less than stellar. But I’ve learned a few things along the way, so I thought I would share some tips with you all.

(more…)

Have you ever had trouble finding just the right sketchbook? Maybe you can’t find the right kind of paper, or they are just too darn expensive. Well, it’s probably easier than you think to make one of your own, and everything you need might already be lying around your house.

Why Make Your Own Sketchbooks?

• Use your favorite paper. Why settle for the same old white paper when you can use toned, textured, heavy weight, watercolor, or lined paper instead? Or, this is a great way to get rid of all those half-used sketchpads you know you’ve got tucked away somewhere.

• It’s cheap. Since most of your materials consist mostly of scraps, paper, and glue, this project is pretty easy on the wallet.

• Style points. No more boring black sketchbooks! Choosing the colors and patterns to use for your sketchbook is half the fun. I once made a sketchbook that was entirely pink, just for the heck of it.

(more…)

This is part three in my series of tutorials about creating comic art on the computer. Check out Parts 1 & 2 here:

Part 1: Sketching and Pencilling in Photoshop

Part 2: Inking in Illustrator

This part will be about coloring your line drawing in Photoshop. Enjoy!

(more…)

This is part two in my series of tutorials about how to make comic book art on the computer. If you have not read the first part, Sketching and Pencilling in Photoshop, you might want to give it a look. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

Ready? Okay, now that we have a nice and refined pencil sketch, it’s time to give it some ink.

(more…)

I recently received a request to write a tutorial about creating comic book art on the computer. Although I don’t work as a comic artist, I’ve always been fascinated by the process. So, this will be part one in a series of tutorials that will outline how I would make a comic digitally.

This was a very fun experiment, and I hope all of you, even you non-comic artists, can learn something new by this series. And by all means, if there are any “real” comic artists out there with any input, please leave a comment on this post.

(more…)