For My W.O.W. Students

On July 25th, I taught a cartooning workshop to a group of about 35 Long Beach youngsters aged 7-10 for LB Grace's "Way Out Weekend" program (or W.O.W.). We worked on a few basics of drawing, exaggeration and character design. I produced the comic below as an example for the kids (click any of the images to enlarge):



I also gave them a peek behind the curtain on how I do what I do. I showed them some rough sketches that helped me define (or in this particular case, re-define) what I wanted Johnny and Manuel to be.



I didn't really feel like I had a good grip on who the characters were until I did this sketch, though. This one helped me figure out what their personalities were and the sorts of stories I could tell with them:



"When you're trying to work out your own characters," I told them, "remember to stay loose! Loose as a goose!"



Finally, I felt good enough to do something a little tighter and defined, so I showed them a full-color shot of Johnny, from pencil concept to final art (this was also the piece of art I used to advertise my class).



It was time to do a quick story with my characters, so, loose as a goose, I roughed out my basic idea for the comic strip.



From there, I redrew the art using micron pens and markers.



Then some Photoshop color to finish it off!

We had a really great time together and I hope to do it again next year. The kids drew rough sketches of themselves, then exaggerated versions of themselves. Then, they created their own characters (and, in a few cases, settings and storylines) from scratch. Some really surprising young artists emerged in the group and I truly hope they stick with it.