Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade

Before launching into a discussion of how to go about transforming your cartoon to something resembling an actual design, we should talk about what you need to begin.

There are two ways to approach this question. The first is the traditional way with pencil, splines, french curves, triangles, a drawing board and lead ducks and the second is a computer and appropriate drafting programme.

How to proceed is a personal decision. Jim Michalak prefers the pencil and drawing board, others prefer the computer. I do most of my work on computer and some with pencil and drawing board but less and less all the time.

Lets start with the basics, a drawing board. A perfectly serviceable drawing board can be made out of a 2x3piece of half inch ply to which you can glue a similar sized piece of masonite or similar smooth material. On the edge of the board which will be closest to you fasten a yardstick. On the back of the piece of plywood, on the edge furthest from you, fasten a 3' 1x1 piece of any wood from your scrap bin, if you have a scrap bin. You now have a drawing board that can be placed on any table,with a slight tilt to make drawing comfortable.

You can get a basic beginner's drafting kit from Staples for $55.99, it does not contain T-squares but it does contain two triangles and with these triangles and the yardstick you can start to build the basic grid on which your design comes to life.

You will recall that first cartoon,

This is the basic grid, that one was drawn using grid paper. However we are going to draw one from scratch.

From the cartoon determine the scale, 1/2”=1ft, the water line length, in this case 13', and you're ready to start. Stick a piece of paper on to your drawing board, securing the corners with drafting tape, or painters tape, it works just as well and is cheaper. Don't use regular tape it tears the paper, what paper you might ask. I used to use paper banquet tablecloth, it comes in rolls 40”x300' and cost. between $25 and $55. That's a lot of drawings.

Using the ruler provided in the drafting kit measure up 6” from the yard stick at either end of the paper and join the two points.

This is your waterline (WL), I like to use a different color for the waterline , green, and centreline (CL), red, on the computer to avoid erasing them by mistake. However on the drawing board it doesn't matter all that much.

The WL needs to be divided into 10 equal parts, for this use the architects rule provided in the drafting kit. You can start at either end of the WL. But what length are the parts? We're going to draw 11 parallel lines, numbered from 0 to 10 so there are 10 spaces and 10 into 13' equals 1.3' which gives us a space of 15.6” (this is all way easier in metric), .6 of an inch is 9.6 sixteenths all of which is going to be headache making doing the measuring so now we need to make some changes to our cartoon design. If we round up the space would be 1-3-5 which is short for 1 foot, 3 inches and 5 eights which would give us a WL length of 13' 1/4”, on the other hand rounding down the space would be 1-3-4+ (the plus indicates add a sixteenth) and that would reduce the WL by a 1/4”, not much to choose between the two of them but 1-3-5 is easier to mark so we'll go with that. You can change the scale at this juncture so the drawing is larger and easier to work with.

Once the marks are made put your triangle on the yardstick and move it to the first mark. Draw a line, you can extend the line to the top of the paper by using the second triangle. Do this for all 11 marks.

 

Then number the vertical lines from 0 to 10, I like to work from right to left with the zero or bow end to the right, you might want to work the other way. Now draw another line 1' up from the yardstick and parallel to the WL, that will be your centreline.

You will end up with a grid something like this,

And there we will end for today.