Category: How to

comic drawing tips

Black Blood.

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Leroy Brown

ICECUBES black ink
Yes, I could have filled the black in Photoshop with one click, but just think how soul deadening that would be…

Black ink is the life blood of ICECUBES the comic strip. Nothing can take its place!
ICECUBES #235 inked small
Original art for this comic is available. This is a unique piece, only one exists. This is not a digital file, this is not a print. Black India ink on Strathmore 400, 2 ply vellum, traces of pencil, titanium white paint, and blue pencil. 15″ x 5″. Signed and dated. $100.00 + shipping.


Personalization:



Striking A Pose!

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Leroy Brown

Ice cubes comic strip drawings
I always sketch out difficult poses before committing them to paper. The thing you’re looking for is how to inject energy into the drawing. So imagine the characters are alive and moving around on the page. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes and picture it. Having said that, you can see that I erased plenty of times before getting it right. Don’t be afraid of using the eraser! Nobody is watching and sometimes it takes a lot of bad drawings to get a good one! 🙂

Ice cubes comic strip 224
Here’s the published comic. Note how the camera angle chopped off the legs, even though I drew them originally!

Talking Balloons and Blue Lines!

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Leroy Brown

Recently I did a strip that required a lot of talking balloons in one single panel. I had to plan it out so that it could be read and understood properly and that there would be room for the characters as well. It took some fussing around and I ended up scoring the entire height of the panel with blue lines!

ICECUBES the comic strip 220 pencils
Since I don’t use a computer for lettering, once I place something I have to commit to it. In the past cartoonists would often blue line their whole strip and I’ve seen Lil Abner strips that were scored from top to bottom regardless of how much text there was! This was often done by an assistant. In my case I was surprised to get to that point where I actually had to do it for practical purposes. Pretty neat! You can see the inked panel here.

ICECUBES the comic strip 220 ink
I was pretty happy with the end result, especially in the last panel where I had to use some white paint for the snow effects!
ICECUBES the comic strip 220 panel b

You can own this strip if you’d like!
I am making it available with *free shipping* to anywhere in the US and Canada, and only $10 shipping overseas.
I will gladly sign it and personalize it for you as well!
**SOLD**

Read the final published strip *here*.
Thanks for visiting! 🙂

Sketches for strip #0211.

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Leroy Brown

These are some sketches for ICECUBES the comic strip #0211 featuring Freeze and Peckinpaw. Freeze trips while playing with his phone device and Peckinpaw makes a remark about technology.


I always make prelim sketches before committing to the original. It helps me figure out placement, body attitudes and action. In this example you can also see some of the writing process. The writing is never done until the final lettering is inked. I even make changes before publishing if something doesn’t sit right! 🙂

Here’s the final strip: