The ShadowMusic Web Community

I've just finished my first attempt at a showreel for my website. I composed the music used for it quite a few years ago on my digital piano/sequencer – not a guitar in site and definitely not 'That Sound'!!!

If you have just over a couple of minutes to spare, please take a look 'n' listen...

MY ONLINE WEBSITE PORTFOLIO

I'm definitely getting a hint of Stanley Ford in some of those captions, Noel .... know what I mean?

JN

Hmmm... sadly (or perhaps, fortunately, in Stanley's case!), Hollywood's idea of the average cartoonist's lifestyle was a little wide of the mark, Jim!

Noel,

Nice cartoons - great ideas!

What is meant by 'digitally drawn'? An electronic pen/brush tool and a suitable software programme? What is your set-up?

Ray

Hi Noel

FRSA??? Fiesta Red Shadow A??????

RayL wrote:Noel,

Nice cartoons - great ideas!

What is meant by 'digitally drawn'? An electronic pen/brush tool and a suitable software programme? What is your set-up?

Ray

Thanks, Ray. My current set-up is:

27" iMac with 23" dual display
Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet
Corel Painter software

Everything I do id drawn directly on-screen, via the tablet, with a digital pen

Paulps wrote:Hi Noel

FRSA??? Fiesta Red Shadow A??????

Ha! More like:

Fiesta Red* Strat (*Allegedly)

noelford wrote:Thanks, Ray. My current set-up is:

27" iMac with 23" dual display
Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet
Corel Painter software

Everything I do is drawn directly on-screen, via the tablet, with a digital pen

Thanks, Noel. Do you write down ideas for cartoons as they occur to you and keep a stock ready to be used as appropiate, or do you need the stimulus of a commission to get the creative juices flowing? (I'm interested in how the creative process works)

Ray

Good question, Ray. When I first started selling my work, at the beginning of the seventies, I always carried a notebook to jot down ideas. The problem was, when I sat at the drawing board, I realised that the fun part of the job, the creation, had already been done and I was left with the 'labour' of the drawing. So I threw the notebook away and simply created the ideas 'on-the-spot'. Nowadays, hardly any of my work is speculative, most of it being commissioned, so the ideas come when I read the brief or, in the case of my editorial work, when I read the news story the cartoon is going to refer to. I also think it's fair to say that, after 36 years as a full-time cartoonist, I have acquired the knack of switching inspiration on and off!

Thanks, Noel, very interesting answer. Those two ways of approaching creation also apply in music and, like you, I find these days that it needs a request or a commission to get me working on a tune or an arrangement. Otherwise, an idea will just wander in and wander out again without my doing anything about it!

Ray

Yes, ideas DO come at inappropriate times if you don't house-train them, Ray! It's not good to burst out laughing during the eulogy at a funeral, or to interrupt an intimate moment with a, "Oh, hang on, let me just jot this down"!

I think you are right, in that this is the same for most creative activities.