In this article I”m going to talk through the steps in creating this cartoon and also show how I used a few devices in the drawing to help lead the viewer’s eye.
Above is the completed cartoon, I’ll now go through all the stages leading up to it.
Here’s the initial sketch. The idea was to have Nessie appearing in the background, with the angler completely oblivious to it.
As you can see, I’ve now coloured in the characters. I used digital water colour for this, and for the background as well.
I’ve now started to add in the background colour.
Adding more tones to the water.
Adding shading and hatching to the characters. I like the ‘double-whammy’ effect of using hatching on top of shading.
Finally, I’ve made some of the outlines a bit bolder.
Now let’s have a look at how I wanted to lead the viewer’s eye towards Nessie.
The tree branch points towards Nessie.
The ‘V’ of the mountains guides the eye downwards.
The red posts on Nessie help to catch attention.
The fishing rod and
keepnet handle point towards her.
The dog’s attention points towards her.