Work first, tools second
Back in 2004, when I was still drawing stick figures, I found myself obsessed with what tools professional cartoonists and illustrators were using. If I wanted to be a pro, I had to know what the right pen and the right ink was — everything that the pros used. When I was surfing the web and looking at illustration books, I headed right to the section where they talk about the tools.
A kneaded eraser? Really? How does that work? I bet I’ll get great line quality with that size 0 liner brush and just draw the details with a Rotring Isograph. And that Ames lettering guide? Just wow.
I knew all that stuff, but it didn’t change the fact that all I could draw was stick figures. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but to pull off the stick figure thing well requires more mastery than a six year old with a crayon. (Check out Matt Feazell’s Cynical Man to get what I mean.) But I was getting too focused on the tools that I forgot why I needed them in the first place — I wanted to learn how to draw.
Couldn’t I do that with a regular pencil?
I was the same way with my woodworking. One of the first how-to guides I read literally stated “The tenon saw should be the first saw you buy.” That really stuck with me, because for a long time I couldn’t start with my woodworking until I got that tenon saw.
But, for some reason, I couldn’t find a single tenon saw in Metro Manila. Eventually, I realized how ridiculous the idea of waiting for a saw was, so I just picked up a good hacksaw and that was that.
And you know what? I ended up loving that hacksaw. When I eventually found a tenon saw a few months ago, I realized that I didn’t really need it and left it on the shelf. As far as I know, my hacksaw is all I need.
Assembling Your Toolbox
Here’s how I got to the right tools:
When I first started inking, I used a regular ballpoint pen. For more varied line quality, I bought the thinnest brush I could find. It didn’t even have a number on it like the ones in the books. I still use the brush and buy two at a time. They’re that important to my process.
The ballpoint pen, on the other hand, did not work. It was too stiff, the ink wasn’t black enough, and you had to press it hard against the paper. So I bought some gel pens – a 0.3, a 0.5, and a 0.7. Then, I realized that I didn’t need a 0.5 that much, so I didn’t care to replace it.
Years later, I realized that I liked coloring with watercolors, but the gel pens weren’t waterproof so the ink would run. Coloring before inking just to avoid this eventually grew too tedious. I had to find a waterproof pen and eventually settled with a Unipin 0.3 and a 0.8.
As for the ink, I started with poster paint (not waterproof) then moved on to acrylic (dried too fast), until I did away with the brush for inking and just used it for coloring.
No one told me to do this, and while I may have ended up with some tools I read about from “the pros”, I got there my own way. It was a very long process of trial and error, adjusting my tools to what I needed at a particular time. If you’re to ask me a couple of years from now what my tools are, I might give very different answers.
It’s not about assembling the right tools beforehand, it’s about acquiring them when needed. It’s the “when needed” that’s confusing, especially since we usually think that we need everything before we even get started. The trick is to start with what you have and build upon that. Otherwise, you get too caught up in the tools and forget about creating.
It’s the tools that should suit your work, and not the other way around.
30 June 2009
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