“The Defiant One.” (c) 2015 Michael J. Barnes.
There is one good thing about being out of work: I have had a lot of time to discover various styles and techniques. With that said, I have finally discovered a cartooning style that I like and think I will continue to use.
This piece I have names The Defiant One. This political cartoon depicts President Obama’s recent announcement of his “need” to bring out his veto pen even before the new congress began its new session. In this illustration, Obama wields his Veto Pen to fend off the offense of bill swinging Republican congressional leaders, while Congress Minority Leader Pelosi offers the President her favor.
For this illustration, I pulled out a piece of software I haven’t used in a while… Corel Painter. I hope you like it.
The first thing you are probably asking yourself is: “Wait a minute? The Amish have opinions about drawing hands?” I honestly have no idea if the Amish ever said anything about drawing hands, and if they did, they wouldn’t blog about it. I got this headline from a Blog Content Generator and it made me laugh… so I decided to use it as a topic headline. Another truth I must share with you is that many times when I draw hands, the results sometimes make me laugh (but mostly it makes me cry).
Drawing hands can be very difficult. Especially for me. When I was younger, I thought I was pretty good at drawing hands. The fact is, I practiced it, and practiced it, and found I could do it pretty well. As the years passed, I fell out of practice of hand drawing, and as a result I find the effort of drawing hands to be just that – an effort.
Before I continue with writing this post, I must admit (just to avoid any confusion) that I am not listing 17 things the Amish were right about drawing hands. I will, however, press the importance of why hands are important in an illustration. Cartoonist Christopher Hart wrote in one of his best-selling how-to books: How to Draw Comic Book Heroes and Villains, “I can evaluate the caliber of an artist by his or her ability to draw hands – and so can everyone else.” By the way, if you are an aspiring artist, I highly recommend adding this book to your library.
In my early offerings of my on-line comic strip Hospitality Included, I discovered the importance of drawing hands (even cartoony hands). I lost a potential reader due to my lack of attention to the characters’ hands. This reader wrote a comment under one of my offerings how my hands were so amateurish that he would never log in and read another one of my Hospitality Included strips. I needed to delete that comment due to the fact that this comment was so explicitly written (language-wise), that it could not remain on a family-friendly comic strip.
Needless to say, I learned early how hands can make, or break, an illustration. As I wrote previously, I still have issues with drawing hands. Fortunately, I recently discovered a great resource (aside from the book I listed above) on how to draw hands. Another positive thing about this resource is that it is FREE. Cartoon Fundamentals: How to Draw Cartoon Hands written expertly and concisely by ,it is a wonderful tutorial about drawing hands. And although the tutorial is about correctly drawing cartoon hands, I find the techniques could be useful for many types of illustrated hands.
I know… this is a long-winded post about sharing a couple of links, but I wanted to demonstrate how important it is that hands are correctly drawn. And one of these days I will actually accomplish this feat again. To help me with this, I have bookmarked this resource, and I recommend any other artist who finds themselves having troubles with drawing hands to do the same thing:
Cartoon Fundamentals: How to Draw Cartoon Hands
If you have any other resources that could help me, and others, please share them in comments section of this post.
By the way, I drew the illustration at the top of this post. If you are a blogger and would like a custom illustration for your next post, or… if you just want an illustration for your avatar or website… contact me. I’m always Looking To Draw.
“Gaur — Character Sheet.” (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes,
Here is my latest illustration. I decided to create this as a one-color line drawing because I wanted to make sure I could still do it. Line illustration is my first love. I first realized that I could draw when I was very young — many years ago — when I discovered that I could draw “Tippy the Turtle.” Like most of you, I grew up reading comic books (unfortunately I didn’t have enough foresight to hang on to them… they’d be worth a fortune today), and knew I wanted to draw for a living.
So, here is my latest submission. I hope you like it.
“Seeing Red.” Digital Line Art Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
I am currently working up a series of email ads for a prospective client and this is the first of a set of line art illustrations that I am proposing to appear in the ads.
I have called this illustration Seeing Red. The concept of the ad is to buy the client’s product to help you ” Stop Seeing Red.”
I haven’t done a lot of line art work recently, so it was good to get back to my illustrative roots.
Mike Huckabee Caricature. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
A new caricature that can be found in my new and growing Illustration Library, I present to you my take on former Arkansas Governor, Fox New Channel Host, and potential 2016 Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee. This caricature is available for use for blogs, bloggers, newsletters, etc.
This image is free for your use. To download, right click on the image and select “Save Image” from the pop up menu. I just ask that if you do use this illustration please add a credit line: (c) 2014 www.lookingtodraw.com. If I can help you with a custom illustration, please contact me.
One last thing: If you use this image, please let me know, and tell me where you used it (i.e. website address)
Marco Rubio Caricature. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
A new caricature that can be found in my new and growing Illustration Library, I present to you my take on U.S. Senator from Florida, and potential 2016 Presidential Candidate Marco Rubio. This caricature is available for use for blogs, bloggers, newsletters, etc.
This image is free for your use. To download, right click on the image and select “Save Image” from the pop up menu. I just ask that if you do use this illustration please add a credit line: (c) 2014 www.lookingtodraw.com. If I can help you with a custom illustration, please contact me.
One last thing: If you use this image, please let me know, and tell me where you used it (i.e. website address)