A question about comic book drawers please help, a homeschool mom please

Question

I have a question to ask? See,I homeschool our son. And for art, he has chosen to want to learn how to draw comic books, thats fine with me, & I fully support that. He'11, & very talented with his drawing.

Are the any websites that can help me teach my son, & further is want to learn to draw comics?

Any help you can give me is so helpful. He's 11, & has alot of love for drawing alot of detail.

I want to support him anyway I can.

Thanks to you comic book drawers.

His dream is to make up his own super hero.

His loves are Spiderman, Batman, & Robin, Hulk, Captain America, basically any & everything to do with Marvel, & DC Comics.

Answer 1

There is also a book called How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way; he'd probably enjoy that.

Answer 2

I have found this site when I teach Cartooning,..to be very helpful with teaching aids in Comic Strips, Character design and genera; Cartooning!

  Look around this d**k Blick site,..for teaching aids to "COMIC CHARACTERS" "DYNAMIC COMIC CHARACTERS" and you will get much of what you need!

  MAD magazine is  a very good incentive to inspire any young cartoonist to draw,...and it's produced by some of the BEST Cartoonists in North America!  Simply Google:  "mad magazine" !!

Answer 3

I am not sure about websites but I KNOW at libraries in the how to draw section they generally have many comic book how to's, and they range evcerywhere from character design, page lay out, inking and also more advance books like ones to teach you how to make the pages flow better and produce a story etcetc. They are awesome resources, free and abundant.

As well as traditional drawings you may want to look into tablets www.wacom.com . They are digital pads that you can use to draw on the computer, and with the sensitivity of a pencil and he can work on coloring and sketching and many other good stuff.

Also why not have him join www.deviantart.com . You can set him up an account. It will give him a chance to get input on his art, and also many big name comic book illustrators display their illustrations there.

Answer 4

This website has very good tutorials on drawing and, if he is interested, coloring and detailing his work on the computer.

the website is http://www.polykarbon.com/

i used this website alot when I was first learning how to color with photoshop and paintshop pro.

Another great idea is for him to keep practicing. I had stopped drawing for over a year and noticed my skill had decreased incredibly and had to work very hard to get it back.

Hope it helps! and tell your son to never give up.

Answer 5

My recommendation is that you help him learn to draw the human figure in as many positions and in as many activities as possible.  There are plenty of books in libraries and bookstores on human anatomy for the artist.  One of these is a good start at teaching him the basic structures of the human being, from the skeletal system out to the muscles and skin.  Don't negect the structures of the hands, feet and face.

How does a comic book hero look holding a sword, a jewel, a newspaper, a flower, a baby?

Then, begin collecting photo images of people doing a variety of activities.  Really good ones should include sports activities of ALL kinds.  Also, find images of people in clothing, uniforms and costumes of all kinds.  Gather images of men, women and children.

How does a cape drape while the hero is walking, running, sitting, turning, leaping, etc.

Have him practice by drawing from these photo references.  Also, take him out and encourage him to draw from real life.  Encourage him to work faster and faster, so that he can "capture" people in action poses. (he can't expect a model to hang, suspended in mid jump, so, if he wants to draw someone making that heroic leap, or fly through the air, your son should be able to "see" the action, and then draw it on paper)

From there, he should be practicing drawing other objects, backgrounds and complete scenes.  He should be able to do this from a variety of angles.  Nothing is more boring than a comic that all takes place at eye level.

Does a human look from directly above, or from a gutter drain, or at a distance?

As far as tools, there is no substitute for an ordiary pencil and paper.  For all of this practice I mentioned, this is all he will, really need.  Maybe, at some point, a Sharpie marker for his first inking attempts.  Don't bother with expensive paper during this period.  As his work gets better, then condiser upgrading his paper stock and, maybe add a few color artist markers that can be added to later.

For, eventual professional looking pages, I do recommend some computer graphic applications and tools.  To begin with, these don't have to be expensive.  I'm sure he already has a computer.  A VERY good entry level graphics program would be Adobe Photoshop Elements.  This is an extremely powerful tool that is equivilant to the full version Photoshop that professionals were using ten years ago.  I know many designers that never have to upgrade to anything more sophisticated.  It uses the same tools and "language" that the more expensive full versions, so, when and if it comes time to upgrade, he will not have to reinvest in a whole new learning curve to come up to speed.  Two other pieces of hardware are pretty critical, but, still, can be obtained at minimal cost.  A flatbed scanner is a good way of getting his sketches into the computer, to modify and finish.  These can be found online and at most computer superstores for under $50.  A digital tablet is another of those tools that professional designers find indespensible.  Again, these don't have to be expensive.  I know a site that has very good entry level models with most of the important design functions, for well under $50.  Some around $30. ( http://geeks.com ) Find them under the "mouse" section.  These tablets are the tool of choice for professionals wanting to draw directly on the computer.

Photoshop has the tools to color, ink and modify the comic book frames, as well as to line the frames.  While an entire comic book can be laid out this way, I suggest, if the budget allows, that it be done in a better page layout application, such as InDesign, Illustrator or other.  These apps are better suited for adding text to the comic frames and pages.

So, my take is that a person should be a good artist before he can even THINK about being a good comic book artist.

Good luck to you and him, and make this exercise FUN!

Answer 6

Tammy that is very neat of you to let your son be expressive in the way that he wants to. Kudos!

Here is some useful information:

http://drawsketch.about.com/od/cartoonin...

There is a section about what it means to get into the comic career feild as well. Just incase he was thinking its something he wants to do when he grows up.

There are A LOT of books at the library he can use at home as well, as well as amazon.com for purchase.

This site looks really appropriate for your homeschooling situation as it's a A-Z home's Cool homeschooling with comics and cartoon section on how to do step by step drawing and cartooning :) might be useful:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/expl...

AND in conclusion:

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?in...

Gives information on how to draw the Marvel Way, since you mentioned his love of Spiderman and the like :)

Have fun! and Kudo's again!

Answer 7

I'm gonna copy some art advice I gave to another comic artist not too long ago who was 14, as it should help quite a bit:

There's an expression amongst writers, and that is that every writer has 10,000 bad words in them, and you're not going to write one good one until you get them all out of your system and reach 10,001. The same is true for artists: Everyone has 1,000 bad drawings in them, and you won't become great until you reach 1,001.

First, get off of lined paper. Get a blank sketchbook (you can get some cheap ones with cheap paper from Borders) and go crazy. Fill the whole d**n thing up and don't be afraid of using paper. Not every drawing has to be perfect, and in fact they'll be far short of that. By the time you get done with the book, you'll be able to compare the first page with the last page and see the leap you've taken.

Next, get an artbook, a really simple one. I recommend any generic Marvel How to Draw Superhero book. You can find them in any decent book store, and I promise that it really, really does nto matter a great deal which one you get. If you want to draw anime style, learn that later, but the superhero ones will teach you many of the basics of figure drawing that will be a foundation of your art for the rest of your life. Most good artists don't put pen to paper and instantly create a masterpeice, they use their erasers ALOT. When it comes to figure drawing, most start with a lightly drawn stick figure, literally a stick figure, so they can see what position the character will be in and make sure the proportions are right before they start to add detail, since it's easier to erase and move a stick figure around. From there, you "tube" by adding basically ovals around each part of the stick figure to get the correct proportion for the arms, legs and torso of the figure. At this stage when making a face, you also make lines around the head (again, using light lines, don't press down hard since you'll be erasing this later) to give you the correct proportion for the placement of the eyes, nose, mouth, hairline, ears and such. Once you have your skeletal figure in place, good amount of your work is done. It doesn't look like much of a drawing, but from there you can lay the details right on top of the figure, erasing the skeleton of the drawing as you add the details in darker lines on top of this.

Pick up one of the how to draw books and they'll show you this process, it will benefit your art IMMENSELY. And from there, like I said, fill up a whole d**n sketch book. Follow any other drawing exercises the book may have, maybe pick up a second book.

I'm recommending you techniques for figure drawing, but don't ignore everything else. You'll want to learn how to draw everything. Go outside, sit on your front porch if you have one (or go to a park) and draw a car you see. Draw a mail box, a lamp post, a fire hydrant, a building, a tree, draw everything! Drawing from life is just as important as drawing from in your head, because what's in your head comes from what you see in life. When you sit down and draw an object like a car, you'll notice details about it you never did before because they weren't important until you had to draw that detail to make your drawing better. A ruler and/or protractor would help with all this too, especially buildings.

As you grow as an artist, you'll want to experiment with better pencils of different types (get rid of mechanical pencils and pens if you use them. Use a lead pencil so you can learn how to shade) and better quality paper, but since to start with you're working on chugging out those 1,000 bad drawings before getting to the good ones, don't worry about it and go with the cheap stuff for now.

Also, I'd say don't bother too much with paints or colors for the time being, those'll come later.

Even if you don't do everything else I've suggested here, the best thing you can do right now is get that blank sketchbook and fill every page.