First post, project background

I’ve been drawing for practically my entire life. Sometimes I’ve even been semi serious about learning how to do it good. When I was a kid I spent many evenings trying to copy the characters of Don Martin in MAD (yes, I’m of that age). When I got a bit older I played around with graffiti and in my twenties I tried to learn basic anatomy and some manga style drawing.

I’ve always been pretty bad at it, though.

Today, I’m a thirty-something (37 at time of writing) year old husband and father of two. I live in the suburbs of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, this is the reason why my english might be a bit odd from time to time. During office hours I work as a integration architect/system developer at a consultant company that I co-own (Mjukvarukraft Sverige AB). My past time is mainly spent with my family. I’ve hardly used a pencil in the last ten years. I still can’t really draw. Even though I enjoy the occasional doodle I can’t draw a straight line, let alone a freaking circle. My artistic life has lately been limited to graphical user interfaces and the occasional application icon.

Long meeting, big doodle.

A while ago I read about a local politician that had been, well, acting somewhat inconsistent, telling media one thing but doing the opposite. I commented on this over social media channels by the means of a “cartoon”. This triggered something in me. I did a profile picture for social media and a family portrait using my computer.

Family portrait, created in Inkscape.

After that I asked myself some questions.

What if I could learn to draw good enough to make this a thing? What would it take? How do I go about to find a way to at least fake some sort of skill in this area? Is Comic Sans, wrong in all situations? ;-)

I can’t be the only one that nurses this ambition to be able to graphically express myself. So, I will utilize this space to share my thoughts and the answers I come up with when researching. I don’t know if this will be a tutorial on how to succeed or an orgy in failures. Probably something in between.

So, how far has I walked this road already? Well, I’ve done some thinking and asked myself some questions. That’s pretty much it.

Q: First off, drawing is a huge area, what path do I wanna explore?
A: Here’s the deal, I like cartoons and comics, I always did. I am going to focus on this. Besides me being a fan of cartoons, this is a good way to express yourself if you want to make a point. You can have a character that expresses your feelings, in that way you as an artist will be distanciated to what you, or rather the character says. Plus you can mix text and graphics and that is a great advantage when expressing opinions or just telling a good joke.

Q: Second, what tools do I have available?
A: I’ve got:

• Pencils
• Some pens
• A sketchpad
• Erasers (gonna need a lot of those)
• A Windows 8.1 laptop
• I’ve actually got me a Wacom Intuos Pro 5 pen tablet just a while ago, this might come in handy.
• A Cannon MP 640, printer + scanner.

These are my tools and since I’m useless when it comes to drawing “free hand” I’m going to try to utilize the crap out of my laptop in this.

So, that’s pretty much it for now. I think I’ve laid down the background and the premise of my “little project” here so I think this will be all for now. I hope to get back soon to deliver some content into this.

10-4. //Niklas

• Next post: Setting up my digital environment. Part 1 - the Tablet.