Libby, I used Rapidograph technical pens back in the day, but they’re a horrible pain in the ass, especially in dry climates. Seems they were always clogging up, or worse, squirting gobbets of ink onto a half-finished ‘toon.
I tried hand-coloring ‘toons for a while, but didn’t like the way they looked (I probably should’ve taken more than one art class in college). So now I color them in (wait for it) Adobe Photoshop 4, circa 1996. I have it loaded on an old dual-boot G4 Power Mac, and have to launch Classic mode (OS9) to run the application.
The nice thing about using this old version is it lets me work in CMYK instead of RGB. RGB is fine for the Innertubez, but magazine production types want CMYK, and the newer versions of Photoshop Elements don’t give you that option.
Thanks, Libby — Photoshop 4 lets me do pretty much everything I need to do with the ‘toons. Subsequent versions of the software became so complex (and so expensive) that I finally abandoned them. And the less pricey Elements, as I noted above, won’t let me export files in CMYK.
It’s like Microsoft Word, another bloated heap of software that I’ve dropped. Most folks, even journos, just need a simple word processor. But Word turned into a sort of half-assed desktop-publishing suite. Total overkill.
I write all my stuff now in either TextEdit or Pages. Photos I edit using Preview. Easy peasy.
Mad Blog Media 
Not the glasses!!
Wow, a wonderful new cartoon!
What brands of markers do you use?
Libby, I used Rapidograph technical pens back in the day, but they’re a horrible pain in the ass, especially in dry climates. Seems they were always clogging up, or worse, squirting gobbets of ink onto a half-finished ‘toon.
Now I draw on Bienfang bristol board using an A.W. Faber Castell 9000 pencil (3H) for the rough sketch and Sakura Pigma Micron pens (005, 01, 02, 03, 05 and 08) for the final inking.
I tried hand-coloring ‘toons for a while, but didn’t like the way they looked (I probably should’ve taken more than one art class in college). So now I color them in (wait for it) Adobe Photoshop 4, circa 1996. I have it loaded on an old dual-boot G4 Power Mac, and have to launch Classic mode (OS9) to run the application.
The nice thing about using this old version is it lets me work in CMYK instead of RGB. RGB is fine for the Innertubez, but magazine production types want CMYK, and the newer versions of Photoshop Elements don’t give you that option.
Thanks! The flesh tones and shading is wonderful. Flesh made real. You gave Il Fattini his due!
Thanks, Libby — Photoshop 4 lets me do pretty much everything I need to do with the ‘toons. Subsequent versions of the software became so complex (and so expensive) that I finally abandoned them. And the less pricey Elements, as I noted above, won’t let me export files in CMYK.
It’s like Microsoft Word, another bloated heap of software that I’ve dropped. Most folks, even journos, just need a simple word processor. But Word turned into a sort of half-assed desktop-publishing suite. Total overkill.
I write all my stuff now in either TextEdit or Pages. Photos I edit using Preview. Easy peasy.
That’s a good one! El Hombre Gordo the botnet.
Given his (ahem) form, I suppose he’s more of a PotNet.