Daycare Comics

One of my tasks at the kindergarten is to make a crown for the kids when they have their birthdays. I know some people just use a simple template with just name and age painted/glued on it, but I tend to put a little more effort into it.

First of all I ask the kids what they want the crown to look like, and then I spend a little time drawing sketchups and layouts. It’s rather fun, actually.

Anyway, a little while ago one of the kids wanted a dinosaur. This one I first drew in pencil, then inked over it with my pen-brush (I love that little thing), and finally finished it off with a little watercolor. I then cut it out and mounted it on a black crown, cut out some fancy letters to spell the name and age, and added some cut cardboard (green) to make leaf and grass.

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the complete product, but I did take a photocopy of the dino and scanned it in to show here. You’ll have to pardon the muted colors, but it lost a lot of detail when photocopied. :-/

Just for fun I’ve decided to show you all a piece of scrap-paper that I’ve used to plan out one of my strips (#5, Almighty). I use a mechanical pen with H lead, so I’ve had to up the contrast quite a bit to make it look legible. Here you go…

I started with the larger text in the upper left. That’s basically what my initial idea for the strip was. It came to me while watching a YouTube video of how to make “Kirby crackles” (those power-dots around the fists and head in the first panel of the finished strip).

I then started thinking of layout. I didn’t like my initial layout for the first panel, but I liked the second one so I decided to go with it as is. The first one I decided had to be much wider, both for the impact it would give, but also for the amount of text compared to the second panel. I ended up liking the pose on the lower thumbnail…

Then it became time to flesh out the hero itself. It’s a very different style from my usual drawings, so I needed a little extra planning. The initial sketch in the lower right had dark hair with a curly lock (Superman, anyone?), but I decided against it. I experimented with flaming hair as you can see higher up but didn’t really like it. Finally settled on the slick blonde style.

I also initially thought of the kid as a villain, not a hero, but somehow that got twisted during the process. I started sketching and ended up with a square-jawed man, and though he looked more like a hero than a badguy. And that easy it is to change moral grounds. :P

A little refining on the armpose as well. I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted the fingers to be displayed, so did a little doodling. didn’t end up with this idea after all. Finally I tightened up the dialogue a little, as you can see in the smaller, more neatly written text.

So there you have it, a worksheet for one of my strips. I don’t know if it’ll help, inform or entertain any of you, but at least it’s available, and might help you know a little more about how I think (when I decide to think at all).

So, the site is finally up, though in huge need of some tweaking. Still, this is just a test and not the final product.

Anyway, the point of this blogpost is both to try it out, and to get your view on something. Color to be spesific. I can draw and ink fairly quickly, but color seems to suck time away even faster than Facebook and World of Warcraft combined.

So, here’s my question you you: Would you rather have one colored strip each week, or 2-3 black and white strips?

To give you and inkling of the difference I’ve taken the last panel of comic #2 and colored it. Keep in mind that I’ve NOT thought these colors through. They are just intended as an example. If I DO end up coloring the strips I’ll use Colorschemer (brilliant little program) to find some harmonious and suitable colorings.