Sketchbook: Bigfoot

Here is a drawing from my sketchbook of bigfoot. This a simple scan without any processing/ digital cleanup. It's a preparation sketch for a bigger piece that I'm planning.

Who I Am, What This Is, and Why You Should Care

My name is Scott Kroll and I'm an aspiring cartoonist. I have been into art most of my life and have recently decided to get serious about making more of it.

I'm a little intimidated by this since I have very little formal training. I've been an obsessive doodler most of my life so I have some skills. However, I need to sharpen my art skills so that my comics will at least look like something.

I do have some experience in writing since that was my major in college. I'm not using that degree in my work situation, really. I'd rather not spend the time explaining my job to you, so let's just say I work in law, with computers.

I'm a big believer that you learn by doing and that the doing part is the most important. I've been trying to draw everyday even if it's just a doodle.

I decided to start this blog for several reasons.

First, I'd like feedback. Something like, "You are an artistic genius and I'm giving you money." Realistically, the feedback will probably be more like, "You suck and visiting this blog was a waste of time." Either way, please leave comments. I'll appreciate them, good or bad.

I also hope that I can use this blog to get more involved in the comic-creating community at large. In other aspects of my life, I've learned a lot from friends who know more than me. I don't know many comic creators, but I'd like to.

Going along with learning by doing, I hope that I can learn more about web design. This blog is pretty plain right now, so I hope to learn how to Fancy it up (I've also registered a domain name!)

So if you enjoy comics, enjoy watching someone make stupid mistakes, or enjoy watching someone struggle through learning hard things, please take this blog and stick it in the blog-reader of your choice.

Bone Dog Page One, Edited

Here is page one of Bone Dog, again. Since I last posted this, I was able to re-scan it and do a little clean-up in Photoshop.

I learned a lot about scanning and image files by doing this. Scanning images tends to magnify mistakes. Lighter lines nearly disappear and uneven lines look lumpier. In the future, I'm going to need to make my panel boarders thicker and bolder and generally be more sensitive to my sloppiness.

The more complicated part was making sure the right resolution and image type. I'll spare you the gory details, but I'm just glad I learned it now when I'm just starting out.

I have to thank Aaron Schmidt and Marie Martino for giving me advice on this.

Also, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, authors of Drawing Words/ Writing Pictures, were nice enough to respond to my e-mail questions about scanning and image files. If you're interested in making comics, I can't recommend their book enough.

I still have a lot to learn about turning paper pictures into electronic files, but I feel like I'm on the right path now.

Anyway, Here's page two of my comic Bone Dog (click on it to make it bigger):