1. Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Marc Lapierre. I draw a webcomic written by Brock Heasley called The SuperFogeys. It can be read every Monday and Wednesday at SuperFogeys.com. I also enjoy sketching various pop culture icons from comic books, movies, music, and television. You can find more of my work at:

2. What’s your hardware setup?

I use a 15” 2010 MacBook Pro with a Wacom Bamboo tablet. I also use an Epson Perfection 2400 scanner and an Epson Workforce 1100 printer. The wide format printer comes in handy for printing templates and rough layouts on Bristol board for comic work. (BTW, my MacBook desktop image is Wally Wood’s 22 Panels that Always Work a great source of inspiration).

3. What’s your workspace look like?

Being a nearly full time stay at home dad, I have to keep my work pretty portable. Most of my work is done in the living room while my 2 year old plays. Since I never know when I’m going to get called into action to kiss a boo boo, clean up a mess, get a snack, or sit in on a tea party, I need to be flexible. I have a small shelf that I’ve repurposed as a lap desk that can be put down easily if a little person needs to climb up into my lap. Most of my regular drawing supplies are stored on a book shelf set up next to my comfy chair or in my travel bag. I have a large clipboard that serves as my drawing desk for most of my traditional drawing work.

4. What tools do you use to make your cartoons?

For the SuperFogeys, I usually rough out the strips in light blue on my MacBook using Photoshop and my Bamboo tablet. I then print out the roughs onto a sheet of Bristol and pencil and ink traditionally. My pencilling is done primarily with a mechanical pencil that I’ve had forever. I’d be lost without it. The inking is done using various sized Pigma Microns. Once the inking is done, I scan the strip and take back into Photoshop for coloring.

When I sketch, I love to try all sorts of things. I usually use colored pencils and markers. I love to experiment by using many different brands of markers. Prismacolor markers are what I use the most mostly because they are the least expensive and easiest to find brand. Their new brush tip markers work very well for getting a more fluid look to my maker drawings. I also have an assortment of older Pantone TRIA markers and a few newer Copic markers in my arsenal. Crayons, watercolor pencils, pastels, and Sharpies are also commonly used tools of mine.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

I am Jez Tuya, and I am a character designer and children’s book illustrator. In layman’s terms, I get to draw and paint pretty pictures, and get paid for it. I’m based in a mythical far off land full of sheep, and the occasional Hobbit.

2. What’s your hardware setup?

My setup is fairly standard- I have a 21” iMac, with my trusty 6-year old Wacom Intuos4 tablet tethered to it. I recently got my hands on one of those shiny Yinova MSP19U drawing tablets as well, and I’m currently in the process of getting used to working directly on screen.

3. What’s your workspace look like?

Imagine if Loki, the Norse god of discord and chaos, got the chance to play with a hand grenade… …and its aftermath…

Seriously though, I have two desks- a standard-issue computer desk where all my gadgets sit, for when I need to do my digital work, (as well as for internetting and general time-wasting), and a draughting table next to it for when I need to do some sketching/painting with “proper” art-making tools.

4. What tools do you use to make your cartoons?

Most of the work I do is done digitally, so my (digital) tools of the trade includes an Intuos4 tablet (which will soon be mothballed and replaced by the Yiynova MSP19U) which is tethered to my 21” iMac workhorse. Software-wise, I use Photoshop CS3, and the very occasional Sketchbook Pro 5. Other than that, I like drawing with 2B pencils, Crimson Col-Erase pencils and Kuretake ink brush pens, and I also delve into watercolours and gouache as well when I can.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Mike Maihack. I draw a used-to-be-webcomic now all-ages-graphic-novel-series called Cleopatra in Space. The first book is due out from Scholastic/Graphix sometime in 2014.

I draw other stuff too. Mostly superheroes. You can find me on:

2. What’s your hardware setup?

Computer: 2011 27” iMac: 2.93 GHz Intel Core i7, 12GB 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM Draw & color on: Wacom Intuos 3 literally being held together by packing and electrical tape. Will most likely become an Intous 5 any day now.

3. What’s your workspace look like?

Currently it’s simply a drawing and computer desk against one wall of our dining room. I have a bulletin board above my drawing desk I use for inspiration/reference. On and in my computer desk are a bunch of toys, art books, and fashion catalogues. Oftentimes one of my cats is part of my workspace as well. He contributes nothing.

4. What tools do you use to make your cartoons?

I initially draw everything with a 0.5mm KOH-I-NOOR RAPIDOMATIC pencil filled with pentel blue lead. I erase (a lot) with a STAEDTLER Mars plastic. Depending on the type of drawing, I either “ink” with a 02 black Micron or a 0.7 mm KOH-I-NOOR RAPIDOMATIC pencil filled with pentel blue lead. I then use Photoshop CS5 to touch up my linework and/or color.

For black inked drawings, I tend to keep my initial drawing very loose and finish the rest digitally. But I always start of traditional.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

I am Phil Kahn and I am trying my hardest to become a professional weirdo. I’m co-creator of Guilded Age, the maker of the #morningclops, and a Super Art Fighter. So… I’m gettin’ there.

2. What’s your hardware setup?

I got an iMac because they look splendid and they keep me from playing too many games. Plus most of what I do for the dayjob is phone support for Windows and it’s oddly relieving to have something else at home.

3. What’s your workspace look like?

God it’s the worst. Discord and catastrophe, eternal chaos made unto desk. It’s littered with detritus and post-it notes asking myself to do things months ago. Do not approach my desk. Do not look my desk directly in the eye. Do not attempt to touch the desk, or the desk’s food. If the desk attempts to attack you, flop to the ground and play dead, and it will pass you over.

4. What tools do you use to make your cartoons?

I do my lettering using the Adobes, and otherwise work almost exclusively on paper. I like to use sketch cards more than anything, since they’re like fun size arts. Canson bristol cards with Prismacolor brush markers and both Copic and Microns for liners. Everything else is usually store brand because I am a cheapskate.

I also have an Intous 4 that I mostly use to do spot-fixes and other editing when doing scanned art or lettering comics or what have you. I am still daunted by going digital. But I’ve got a copy of Manga Studio ready to jump in when the time comes.

Writing wise, pretty much everything is done with Google Drive, which is neato because it lets us two co-writers edit scripts simultaneously.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Paul Caggegi. I am a freelance motion graphics designer, and video editor. I also am the writer and artist behind the sci-fi action-adventure web-comic Pandeia.

2. What’s your hardware setup?

I work mainly on my Macbook Pro, sporting a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor; 4GB of 1333 DDR3 RAM. I use aMedium Intuos 4 Wacom tablet. I also occasionally work on a Desktop running Linux Ubuntu. It’s beefed up with 8GBs of RAM, a quad-core i7 processor, and a 23 inch ASUS LCD monitor.

3. What’s your workspace look like?

Messy. There are bills, envelopes, action figures and software books covering everything. I push it aside to make enough room to do some work, but then the miscellanea seems to cover everything back up while I’m sleeping.

4. What tools do you use to make your cartoons?

Traditional pencil and paper. I’m not too fussy on grades of graphite or type of paper. A 110gsm A4 sketchpad and a 2B pencil suffice to get practice sketches, concepts and compositions down (usually when I am commuting to on-site jobs). I’ll go over the ideas I like with either a sharpie, or 0.5mm Artline. Alternatively, I use Sketchbook Pro on my iPad2 with a Gecko brand stylus.

When working digitally, I use photoshop, illustrator, GIMP. I also use Blender ALOT. I create sets and props in 3D, then spend HOURS in Blender’s nodal compositor coming up with setups which render the right comic-book shading look. I’m still perfecting my methods, but I can get a pretty good inking pass out of Blender!

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