How to cartoon the Bagman way

Step 1: Creating an Idea

I do thing's in steps and the first step being as with all artists coming up with an idea. A lot of my inspiration comes from Comic's, Cartoons, and even some artist's that are out there on the web. Once I have an idea brewing I begin shaping it on a peace of paper. Making sketch after sketch tell I come up with what I had in mind for the picture. Here is an example of something I am working on right now.

As you can see it's a mess right now but it does not matter what your sketch look's like it's only the final product you should worry about.

Step 2: Cleaning up

In this step the first thing I do is trace over the pencil sketching with a regular old Sharpie fine point marker.

And then after that has been done I erase as much of the left over pencil marking's as I can.

After I do that I scan the picture in a line art format. That gets rid of any left over pencil marking's and makes it look sharper.

Step 3: Coloring

Now from this point I fill in any broken line's and then I'm ready to start coloring it in. For this portion of the job I use two programs which are the Adobe photo shop and the Meta Creations Painter Classic. These two programs are excellent for cartooning. Now the first thing I do is apply the base color for the picture and that I do in the photo shop from there I go in and start applying the shadowing and other fine details of the picture which I do in the painter classic. Here is an example of one of my drawing done. So you can see what both these programs can accomplish together.

And that is how my stuff is done. In closing I would like to say if there was any real good advice for want to be cartoonist's it would have to be this ( Draw, Draw, and Draw) the three D's of a great cartoonist. Because you see the more you practice the better you become.

To all of you cartoonist's out there good tooning and good luck BAGMAN.