Tag Archives: microblog

Secrets of effective cartooning

In a comment to a microblog post by cartoonist B. Kuang (atop the image at right, he notes, “Thirty years of thought and a morning of drawing. I need a title. Thanks”), another microblogger asks:

请问楼主:一个15岁的孩子以前没有专门学过任何绘画,想今后能画漫画的话,都应该学绘画方面的那些东西?先学啥后学啥?望能赐教,谢谢
Let me ask the OP: What aspects of drawing should a fifteen-year-old girl who has never studied drawing before but wants to be able to draw comics in the future study? What first? And what next? I await your instruction. Thanks.

Kuang replies:

第一,基础素描少不了,避免眼高手低,为什么国内有很多漫画的画面写满了文字注解,就是绘画的表达能力不够所至,第二个要博览群书,增加生活阅历,提高思想意识,没有深度的生活积累,作品只能是肤浅的。

First, you’ve got to have a grounding in sketching so your skills will match your ambition. So many cartoons in this country covered in textual notes because the expressiveness of the drawing is insufficient. Second, read widely, increase your life experience and heighten your consciousness, for without a deep experience of life, your work will only be superficial.

and continues:

还有就是开微博,这里是知识的海洋,上来接受百家“教育”和熏陶,公民意识加强了,作品就有生命力了。君不见,很多真实的历史是我们的教科书里没有的。我在这里受益菲浅,感恩中……

And then start a microblog. This is an ocean of knowledge, so go on and receive “education” and edification from all corners, and strengthen your citizenship, and then your work will have life. Don’t you realize that many truths of history are not contained in our textbooks? I have gained much here, and I am grateful…

Kuang’s work is immediately recognizable when it is published in the print media or reposted online. His drawings are detailed, but they also contain bold, easily understood elements which, per his instructions, don’t require much captioning at all.