Okay this is totally a bit weird but, for those who don't know how I do Dribble For Kids, I don't openly talk about it.  Frankly, most everyone knows Chasing Amy and thus, the quote "You're A Tracer" so telling people how I openly draw D4K is not something I just from the mountain tops, at least on here.

It's why I think I did this and sorta posted it right away and then didn't openly promote the hell out of it as much as I did the first D4K video.



As you can see, yes, I use tracing paper.  And to be frank, if you want a crash course on how to draw, I suggest nothing better than using tracing paper.  It saves on buying a light-box, and if you draw something really well on another piece of paper, you can place it accordingly by retracing it on the final template for the page.

The keyword there is template. 

Yes, when I started Dribble For Kids, the first few strips here and there would seem consistent (in their own horribly vomitriffic way) and other times, not so much.  This was achieved by using Tracing Paper templates of the characters. Sort of how Tim Buckley does his own comic or Scott Kurtz as well, I do a template of the page on a tracing paper piece, and then put the templates underneath and trace it accordingly and just had hand movements or facial expressions. 

Thing is, after doing it enough, I started to disect how I drew the characters in the templates, learning how to draw them and thus, other things as well.  to the point where I have the upper half of the D4K gang pretty much good (minus Jimmy's bowl-like hairstyle. It still curses me to this day...)

So when Nathan and I went to Blick's the other day, and I got some bristol board which is something close to what the pro's use, I didn't think I'd use right away but, I'm a glorious impaitent bastard, and thus...



Yes, the middle is missing, it's some digital effect stuff I'll be adding in.

As you can see, it's huge, and bigger than the small rinky-dinky tracinig paper.  I personally love and enjoy it.  I started drawing page 17 of D4K Issue 10 on another bristol board, be damned.  I was originally gonna do Page 16 (seen above) only as a test, but I really loved it too much.  So far, I totally love it.  I truly wish though that for once, instead of drawing on a flat surface, I had an actual drawing table on a slant.  Yeesh. 

I also want to share this, speaking of Nathan...

Nathan always goes above and beyond when he does something artistic, and like this, he drew himself in my style, and even drew Heather! I literally laughed a minute or two, geeking out.  While Nathan in the comic is only reminescent of Nate T. via looks, I still geek out when he draws his own character. And Heather's pose is hilarious. I truly love this.


Nathan noted to me after getting my permission, that he will be posting a bunch better version at some point on his own blog, so stay tuned.  If you're curious, this was my birthday card.  :-D



What would a Nick Nitro sketch dump be without a TMNT sketch? Yeah, I was drawing movie-styled TMNT. 



As I relayed to Nathan that the last few pages of Issue 10 literally scared the ever-living fuck out of me as an artist, he commented a suggestion for me, which is to draw the "Elf-Chick" like Paul Dini's style or, well, Jingle Belle.  I really liked the idea, so if you examine the bristol board above, you can totally see a bit a different style of the Jingle Belle character.  I'll switch up the colors too, but... yeah.

Tomorrow is another day of work... wondering if I can get any inking done during the downtime? The question if we'll have downtime is a big question.  Survey says.... yes.

Signing off,

Nitro