FIGURE DRAWING FOR THE COMIC BOOK ARTIST

Ty really wanted to put together a blog post about his new class FIGURE DRAWING FOR THE COMIC BOOK ARTIST but he’s been too busy teaching his other classes (Writing for Comics Level One, Inking for Comics) writing a script, sketching, sleeping, and occasionally talking to his children. So, I’m here pinch-hitting…

Figure Drawing for the Comic Book Artist is a brand new class which starts tomorrow, Wednesday January 25, at TCW. The school has had Studio Life Drawing classes with Geordie Miller, and recently ran some Open Session Drop-In Life Drawing Classes. But Figure Drawing is being taught by a comic book artist with a focus on learning what other comic book artists need to know. Before this, Ty has taught Drawing the Human Figure from Memory–this obviously helps put those lessons to use! With a model in front of the class, students now have the ability to clearly see what Ty is teaching and the muscles and bones he’s trying to get them to pay attention to and learn.

As he was packing up for his Inking class tonight, I asked Ty to quickly tell me why he thought this was a good and worthwhile class. He said, “Most comic book artists learn anatomy, learn the human figure by imitating other comic book artists. While not a bad thing, it does mean that you end up making figures that look like Neal Adams drew them, or Ty Templeton or whomever you imitate. (Sometimes, depending on the artist, that means you learn to draw their mistakes!) What you need to learn is to draw from life, to draw the human figure as you see it in front of you. It helps you to know the figure, to be able to draw it out of your head, and to have your own style, your own way of drawing.”

(photo by Geordie Millar)

A couple weeks ago, Ty ran a Sneak Peek workshop for Figure Drawing for the Comic Book Artist. Every one who attended came out raving about it.

Ty Templeton teaches his Sneak Peek Workshop FIGURE DRAWING FOR THE COMIC BOOK ARTIST (photo by Geordie Millar)

Artist/animator Karly MacDonald was nice enough to send me scans of some of her drawings from the night. Ty was particularly impressed with the model, Rubie Laframboise, as she actually is eight heads high–although that’s always touted as the standard to follow in figure drawing, it’s unusual to see someone who actually fits that perfectly.

There’s still a couple of spots left in the class if you’re interested…check out the information on the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop site and reserve a space. This workshop probably won’t be offered again for several sessions after this.

(photo by Geordie Millar)

 

Keiren

LAST WEEK on the ‘net

Tuesday January 17

Stig’s Inferno: Minions of Satan! Beware the Visine! from COMICS-A-GO-GO!

8

The Hole in my Comic Collection… from Comics GB

Wednesday January 18

The cover for my 2012 picture book on Batman from Noblemania

Thursday January 19

From a dusty corner of comics history comes the ’90s comic book TV series Bob from Comic Book Resources/Robot 6

 

Friday January 20

The State of My Pull List, Issue 13: December 2011 from Chamber Four:  for readers of books and ebooks

 

*

Failure of Resolve Bun Toons! YAY!

Take heart in my poor showing, people. It makes you all look better!

Don’t try to deny it!  You’ve all made exactly these mistakes.

Next year, I’m vowing to breathe more oxygen, and eat more meat.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your flagrant disregard for the Stop Online Piracy Act Moment.

It’s all so meta.

For last week's Comic Closing Nostalgia click the link above

For every Bun Toon Ever click the silly rabbit

The Convention Sketches Came From My Basement!

A couple of weeks ago, I put together a sketchbook for an open house/gallery show at the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop.    (click on Sketchbook by Ty above!)  We printed up a bunch of ‘em, and had a dozen or so left over after the event, so we offered up em through our little website here.

Each sketchbook has a first page left intentionally blank, so that I had a space to scribble a doodle and signature and a message for the person getting it at the open house.    I can’t remember what I sketched in those books, as my brain forgets the image as soon as it’s drawn.

But when I did little front-page doodles for the fine folks who ordered copies  through the website, there was a scanner handy.  So I’m posting a bunch of them today.  While you guys are looking at them, I’m busy finishing up a script for Heroes of the North, and designing a giant killer robot for a project I’m doing with a fairly famous pal of mine at a fairly major comic company.  (What a tease I am!)  I’ll keep you posted.

This last sketch below comes with a small story.   On Tuesday I got into a conversation with someone about what is the “right” tool to ink with, and responded with the advice Joe Kubert once said:  ”grab anything and use it.  If you need a specific brush or pen,  you’re not making the line, the tool is.”

Within reason, obviously. Kurbert didn't mean for anyone to ink with one of these.

Well, just for the straight up hell of it, I tried inking a sketch with the giant fat marker pictured above.  A really beat up, half dry one, too.  In fact, I searched for the skankiest marker in my studio.  This is what I got.

I wasn’t particularly trying to ape Kubert’s style when I did this, and pulled the Tarzan portrait out of my head, but there’s an eerie hint of Kubert-isms in the final sketch.  I think that’s the secret of Joe’s style.  Ink with the most awful piece of shit tool in your studio, and the constant awareness that you’ll never get a line you’ll like, that you stop looking at each stroke and focus on the whole drawing.

I’m going through the garbage and rescuing all my horrible dead brushes and gnarly markers.  That was fun!    Next sketch I do gets inked with a spray can.  I’ll show Kubert there’s tools you can’t use!

I think we have one or two sketchbooks left.   You’d have to check with my wife by going HERE.

Ty the Guy OUT!

PS:  BIG events at the Toronto Cartoonist Workshop tonight.  I shall speak of them tomorrow.

———————————————————————————–

Here now, a BONUS sketchbook page, left out of the printed collection for space.   I learned to draw the WildCATS: Animated style from back in the 90s…

LAST WEEK on the ‘net

Tuesday January 10

Bob Newhart’s Comic Book Series Coming to DVD from Comics Worth Reading/DVDs Worth Watching

Wednesday January 11

Aquaman T-Shirt from The Aquaman Shrine

A Sense of Wonder: The Bronze Age of Comics from The Comics Cube

Inking from COSTA K’S MISC. THINGS

Friday January 13

The Webcomic Overlook #191: Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether from THE WEBCOMIC OVERLOOK

Sunday January 15

Quick Critiques – Jan. 15, 2012  from Eye on Comics

 

*

Dragon Lady Bun Toons! Not so Yay!

We are gathered here to pay our respects...

After more than 33 years of operation, the DRAGON LADY COMICS SHOP is closing its doors in two weeks.  If you’re not from the Toronto area, and aren’t much into the comics scene, then  I suppose the closing of a local comics shop isn’t going to mean much to you.   But I’ve lived my life in Toronto, and started my career here, so the memories are flooding in.  The Dragon Lady wasn’t the biggest shop in the city, it wasn’t the first, or the best known.  But it was my local comic shop for a good chunk of those years so I get to be mewly and sentimental.

So, darn it all.

 

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your BONUS Dragon Lady Comics Moment:  I meet Harvey Pekar in a Bun Toon originally published a year or so ago.   Here it is again!

This appeared originally the week after Harvey died.

—————————————————————————————

For last week's obtuse and confusing Bun Toon, click the franken-creatures

For every Bun Toon Ever! Click the Obtuse and Confusing icon

Inking for Comics. I wish someone would teach people how…

Inkers.   HAH!  They are to laugh!

I inked this. I'm sometimes a professional inker.

There’s a character in the Kevin Smith film CHASING AMY who inks comics for a living, and his friends call him a professional tracer. He complains that he’s not, but convinces no one, and the movie was a minor box office hit, so it left that defining moment in America’s brain.

Banky Edwards during a moment of self-loathing

When it first started up in the 90s, the inkers at Image Comics, were working with prima donna pencilers who insisted their work be reproduced as faithfully as possible and forced their inkers to actually BE “tracers”. This further convinced a generation of comic fans that inkers were barely trained monkeys with a sweatshop tool in their unskilled paw.

un-inked pencils by Erik Larsen. The inker better not get "creative".

And of course, there’s always just running the pencils through a photoshop filter. Screw the inker, who needs ‘em? They’re only messing up my work.

But the inker is the essential last hand on the drawing. He or she is the one that makes the artwork lively, or bold, or personable, or slick, or capricious. They are the singer of the song. The human hand. The Deus Ex Machina: The creator emerges from the machine.

Consider your favorite comic book or graphic novel: A CONTRACT WITH GOD, MAUS, WATCHMEN, BATMAN YEAR ONE, RED HULK POUNDS HIS ENEMIES TO DEATH, BLANKETS, SIN CITY, V FOR VENDETTA, or Name Your Own Favorite…

pictured above: Knowing what you're doing.

Every one of these magnificent examples of the form has a distinct and memorable kind of line work. It’s built into the character of each story, inseparable to the experience, and to treat this essential skill with little more than a backhand slap is to misunderstand what makes comics the appealing form of media that they are.

Ty Templeton inks Tom Artis on Tailgunner Jo.

I’m teaching a seven week comic book inking bootcamp at the TCW this January, starting on January 17th, on Tuesday Evenings. (spaces are still available in Inking for Comics. –kts)

click here to visit the TCW online and find out more

Come on down and learn to know what you’re doing.

Click here to find out more.

Ty the Guy OUT!

PS:  If you’re in Toronto tonight, drop in for my “Drawing the Figure” drop in class.  25 bucks at the door for three hours with a live burlesque model, and an instructor who knows anatomy!   Who says this isn’t the TCW Age of Learnin’?

587A College Street (at Clinton), Toronto, On, Canada, M6G 1B2 • Phone: 647.328.1656 • info@cartoonistsworkshop.com

(AND Ty is teaching Writing for Comics Level One, Mondays, starting January 16, 7-10pm. There’s still some spots available. And there’s a special deal if you’ve taken Level One before, and you’d like to repeat it before taking Level Two in March; 50% off of Level One. contact Sean Menard  through info@cartoonistsworkshop.com for details.

AND Ty is teaching a full course for Figure Drawing for the Comic Book Artist.  Featuring a different model each Wednesday evening, beginning January 25 7-10pm, with instruction from Ty. Spaces still available, but they are limited for this course.  Keiren)

Here now, your bonus moment.

While the inking is competent, it looks like it was "traced". Sigh...

LAST WEEK on the ‘net

Monday January 2, 2012

The Year in Review: 2011 from The Comics Beat

Superman at Seventy from Ty Templeton  from what a crazy random happenstance!

Wednesday January 4

Wedding Bells in Riverdale from ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union):  Blog of Rights

Thursday January 5

Dragon Lady follow-up from  The Joe Shuster Awards

*

Frankly, Bun Toons! YAY!

Happy New Year Bunny People!

Here be the toon.

It’s probably best I didn’t do this strip during the holiday season…but speaking of reasons to celebrate, it’s Chas Addams 100th Birthday today, and I guess the monsters in that strip were in honour of the great man and his macabre sense of humour.   I’ll leave it up to you to determine which one of those images truly represents a monster, but hint:  It’s one of Franken and Davis.

Ty the Guy OUT!

And now your BONUS moment:

Of all the people mentioned above, who has the best comic book?

There’s no way Frankencastle ever had a comic book.  He couldn’t be real.

———————————————————————————————-

For Every Bun Toon of 2011 and 2010, click on the omni-bunny