Digital Dining

A fun cartooning assignment I had at work last week.

For this illustration I sketched the characters in pencil and roughed out the design on typing paper. I'm trying to cut down on the amount of time I sit in front of the computer when I do my illustrations-- I've been working only with the computer for the past few years. The deadline pressures of the newspaper call for things to be done quickly and I've used photoshop as my tool to the exclusion of all other methods of picture-making. Chronic shoulder pain and a sort of creative-claustrophobia have driven me back in the other direction.

I really enjoyed drawing these characters, each of them on their own legal-sized sheet of paper with a blunt, dark pencil. Of course, I scanned them in, arranged them just so, redrew most of it-- sort of "inking" the original drawings on another layer-- and then added the color. Still, it was a fast process and I'm going to work this way more often. I'm aware that it's not even close to breaking with digital art but it is about as far as I can go right now.

p.s. Forgot mention that this was for a story about technology and food. Now you can look up recipes with your cell phone while you're shopping-- there was more to it than that, but that's all there was to my drawing.