Video: Mark Anderson Draws

My pal Mark Anderson has a video of him drawing a cartoon, from pencils to inks, in real time at his Andertoons blog.

Mark shows you the drawing process; just the one of the many steps in cartooning -- but the part that people tend to really like. I admire Mark's work, and personally think it's brave of him to show this! I especially like the "fix this" in PhotoShop notes he writes to himself on the original. It's shown in real time and about 8 minutes passes from blank sheet of paper to finished cartoon (excepting that minor PhotoShop fix).

One caveat: Mark makes it look easy. It isn't! With thousands of cartoons under his belt, he draws efficiently and quickly for us.

Above: The line "Ooooh! It must be WONDERFUL to be CREATIVE all the time" is what a client said to me once.

It's not always so WONDERFUL -- as you can see by the mounds of paper with things crossed out in my above doodle. Heck, to be a cartoonist you gotta draw, write, be able to deal with clients, manage the money, find new markets -- and you gotta do this every day. The creative part is shackled to the commercial aspects of producing appropriate material.