Disney-comics digest #278.

Don Rosa 72260.2635 at CompuServe.COM
Thu Mar 24 05:45:35 CET 1994


MARK:
	Since I never intended to become a professional comic booker, I
never made any investigation of what standard materials or practices are
for the industry -- I suspect NOTHING I do is done the way anyone else
does it, so I always warn people to not put the slightest bit of value
on anything I tell them I do, how I do it or the tools I use. I've just
made it all up on my own and I have no notion of how it's supposed to be
done. I'm sure there are much better methods, as my results and the time
it takes for me to achieve even THEM attests.
	Actually, Egmont dictates the size of my originals, which is
okay by me, except maybe that they have me draw rather large, which only
means I'll take that much more time to fit in more detail. I do each
page in two halves, each half being about 12.5" X 9" (whatever that is
in the metric system I use), making a full page about 12.5" X 18".
	"Tools" are my biggest area of ignorance. If I knew what I was
doing, I'd have learned how to use a single brush such as Van Horn might
use. Instead, all I know are pens. I use up to EIGHT pens (and brushes)
on EACH PANEL. I start with a calligraphy pen (which gives me line
variation in a single stroke) for the "close-up" (thick lined) stuff,
then an italics pen (same wedge tip as the C. pen, only smaller), then a
"drawing" pen (plain tip), then two sizes of Rapid-O-graph (technical)
pens for straight lines and templated things. Then a speed-ball to fill
in the small black areas, then a medium brush to fill in larger black
areas, then a tiny brush to spend about a half-hour on each page WHITING
OUT lots of mistakes, evening out the ends of cross-hatching, and
blotting out whole vistas of needless and irritating detail that you
never even see. 
	I mentioned templates: I use stacks of templates and curves.
Templates are those plastic sheets with all sorts and sizes of circles,
ellipses, ovals and such. I use these WHENEVER I can, often doing a
large part of each page just with these "mechanical drawing" tools --
undoubtedly my engineering degree showing. For example, with templates I
ink all nephew heads, all eyes and eyeballs, $crooge's glasses and the
upper portion of his top hat, all buttons, nephew's hats, and even their
feet and bills in certain angles. That's just the DUCKS themselves --
naturally anything else in every panel that involves a circle or
angle-view of same, or any gentle curve like a motion line, ALL this
will I ink meticulously with technical equipment! Obviously, this is not
the technique of a normal cartoonist -- it's the technique of an insane
person.
	Lettering? Think about what you're asking. How could I letter my
stories when they are simultaneously printed in about 20 languages by
Egmont alone. At Gladstone, as the credits say, the lettering is done by
people they hire; lettering on my stories is now done by Todd Klein who
normally letters for other companies, but is a big Duck fan and
requested the job of lettering my stories. So, yes, I simply ink in the
empty balloons. The size I make the balloons is guess-work -- my
instructions are to generously estimate the balloon size for English
(this will accomodate most languages) then ADD one full line for Finnish
(this is called the Finnishing Touch). But the balloons you see on my
stories in Gladstone comics are NOT MINE, and the art around the edges
of the balloons is NOT MINE. Somebody has always whited out those extra
large balloons (using stats), redrawn smaller ones and finished the art
in around the smaller balloons. I am very grateful for the trouble they
take to make my stories look nice by eliminating the big, bulky
balloons.
	Yes, most of the needless and irritating detail is done in the
pencil stage. On the other hand, some of what I feel are my best gags do
not appear in my scripts, but leap off my pencil as I draw without my
seeming to think about it. Actually, my scripts usually contain only
plot and dialogue -- it's not until I draw the stuff that the stories
become funny simply because I don't take my stories seriously. The humor
is almost an afterthought.
	Time: I hope to draw a page a day. That doesn't mean I pencil
and then ink one page at a time. But while I pencil I try to do 4
half-pages per day, and later INK that same amount -- this then averages
one full page per day. However, with the type of stuff I do, I NEVER
seem to meet that goal; this $#@%*& Croesus story I just did with
ancient temples with 127 fluted columns, took much longer -- only 3
half-pages per day, adding many extra days to the job.

	What else?





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