Woolly Wails...

So - we're now passed the half way mark in the daily sheep calendar series. Don't forget, I'm offering a signed print of December's image to the first person to guess what the title of that month's image might be. I'm also offering the same for the suggestion that makes me laugh most. It'll be September tomorrow (okay, so if I'd timed this better, it would have been October), but for now...

AUGUST

Mean Meh-chine...

The sixth in the daily sheep calendar series. Don't forget, I'm offering a signed print of December's image to the first person to guess what the title of that month's image might be. I'm also offering the same for the suggestion that makes me laugh most. It'll be August tomorrow, but for now...

JULY

Balloony Tunes...

The sixth in the daily sheep calendar series. Don't forget, I'm offering a signed print of December's image to the first person to guess what the title of that month's image might be. I'm also offering the same for the suggestion that makes me laugh most. It'll be July tomorrow, but for now...

JUNE

All Greek to me...

The fifth in the daily sheep calendar series. Don't forget, I'm offering a signed print of December's image to the first person to guess what the title of that month's image might be. I'm also offering the same for the suggestion that makes me laugh most. It'll be June tomorrow, but for now...

MAY

On reflection, I think we missed a potentially much funnier "Lamb Baa Da" with this one, but as the competition suggestions roll in, I can see there's great potential for a few years of follow-up calendars here.

Woolly Wheelies...

The fourth in the daily sheep calendar series. Don't forget, I'm offering a signed print of December's image to the first person to guess what the title of that month's image might be. I'm also offering the same for the suggestion that makes me laugh most. It'll be May tomorrow, but for now...

APRIL

Armitage Sheep Shanks...

The third in the daily sheep calendar series. Don't forget, I'm offering a signed print of December's image to the first person to guess what the title of that month's image might be. I'm also offering the same for the suggestion that makes me laugh most. It'll be April tomorrow, but for now...

MARCH

Day Two in the Sheep Shed...

The second in the daily sheep calendar series. Don't forget, I'm offering a signed print of December's image, all glossy and everything, to the first person to guess what the title of that month's image might be. I've now also decided to offer the same for the suggestion that makes me laugh most. It'll be March tomorrow, but for now...

FEBRUARY

Feeling sheepish...

Apologies to anyone who has been popping in recently, only to discover the same old rubbish that's been here for the past couple of weeks. I have no real excuses other than lethargy and... well. that's about it really.

BUT... I hope to make amends, and in as much as anything you believe on the Internet is concerned, I pledge... yes, pledge... that I'll post a new bit of rubbish every day for at least the next twelve.

And I'll even throw in a theme - the following is the first of a set of fun drawings I did for a calendar. It was a private commission by friends who have a healthy(ish) affection for sheep, and the ideas were conceived over several bottles of... well, see below...

JANUARY

I thought it might also be fun to have a little competition running alongside this, and so the first person to guess what the title of December's image will be (clue: it's the only one that's actually relevent) will win a signed print of that image, providing they're happy to trust me with their postal address. You'll hopefully get the idea of the thought process behind this over the next few days. Keep guessing - I won't say if anyone gets it right until the end, and if no-one does, I'll award the prize to the one I like best anyway.

Kerrikachoors...

Well, how do you spell it? It's possibly the most commonly misspelled word in the business, mostly by prospective clients, but I've also seen quite a few caricaturists seemingly having problems with spelling their own product, which surely can't be great for business. Then again, if so many clients can't spell the word, maybe it doesn't matter that much?

Anyways, as promised, I can now reveal that the two pen and ink charactertures in my last blog, were indeed the first and last ones, as John Fisher correctly identified... eventually! The second and third were produced entirely using a Cintiq, from start to finish. I'm glad it wasn't too obvious, and I'm not sure what it proves other than both methods can yield very similar results in terms of line quality. And that, I guess, is what I wanted to show. I love using my Cintiq, but I can't and won't say that it produces better results than pen and ink. It does have many advantages in my opinion, but a god pen and ink drawing will always be a joy to behold and produce.

And while we're talking caracatures, the second Chracerature Contest over on the cartoonists.co.uk forums has just ended, with some truly splendid interpretations of this month's 'target', the flamboyant Gok Wan. Go have a look, and if you fancy joining in the next contest, feel free - you have until 11pm (UK time) on October 5th to email me with your entry. Full details here. This month's winner was a first-time poster on any of the forums, so it's anyone's game if you feel like taking part in the fun.

I enjoy organising the thing, and so I don't take part in the contest itself, but that doesn't stop me from having a go. Here's what I came up with this month...

Old versus New...

The digital revolution began for me about 15 years ago, when my kid brother practically forced a proper computer (I'd only ever possessed an Amstrad word processor up to that point) on me that he had 'built' from spares. He actually drove nearly 300 miles to hand it over, so I felt obliged to at least let him set it up and switch it on, even if I was as convinced as I had always been up until that point that there was nothing a computer could do that would improve my life. I was a card carrying Luddite, and fiercely proud that I was using practically the same tools of my trade as those whom I followed for at least a century before me.

That all went out the window with that first boot-up, and I've never looked back since. It's taken most of those fifteen years, but these days I am now fully transformed into a digital cartoonist. Gradually over those years, I have put aside my coloured inks, my black ink, my mailing tubes and my address labels... and now, even my pencil and paper, as I use a laptop PC, a Wacom Cintiq tablet, and the Internet, to provide me with everything I need to create and supply work to practically anywhere that wants it, faster than I'd ever have dreamed possible just fifteen years ago.

I love the doors this has opened, and the extra dimensions it has given me with which to ply my trade. And I'm happy to evangelise these benefits to all who will listen. There are some who won't, for a variety of reasons, and I fully respect that, having been where they once were, and still retaining a love for those tools of the trade I've left behind, but will never totally abandon. But I do believe that in order to stay alive in this business, you need to be able to provide what today's clients want, and that really boils down to quality merchandise (as always), but in digital format, and instantly delivered.

Occasionally, however, you do come across the attitude that what you're producing in a digital format can't possibly be as good as the 'classic' tools of the trade. That somehow using the new tools dulls your edge, or can't deliver the same quality. Of course, there will always be those will produce work on a computer that completely backs up this viewpoint, and I've seen many flat, horrible examples that taken in isolation would put me off digital artwork for life.

But like most innovations, these 'new tools' take a little time to master, and with time and knowledge, can prove not only a match for all the old ways, but provide infinitely more possibilities thrown in. Leaving the latter aside for a moment, and concentrating on the "match" claim, above and below are four caricature commissions I have worked on in the past few years. All are coloured using Photoshop, but two were initially drawn on paper using a pencil, followed by dip pen and ink, whilst the other two were drawn entirely using digital technnology (I resist using the term 'hand-drawn', becasue they were all hand-drawn - new tech replaces the tolls, not the artist).

See if you can tell which is which (comments welcome - answers when next I blog)...