Daryl Cagle: Hi, I'm Daryl Cagle, and this is the CagleCast, where
we're all about political cartoons.
And I've been getting a lot of email from people who want us to do how- to kind of
videos, and tell you how we draw things, and so, that's what I'm doing today.
This is a how- to video show, and I'm going to show you how I drew
this cartoon of the Trump U.
S. Eagle facing off the Mexican Eagle.
I actually drew this about seven years ago during the first Trump
administration, and he was having similar face offs with Mexico at that time.
And, so it seemed to me like it was still fresh, and I decided to,
call it fresh and bring it back and, post it again for newspapers.
So, I was looking back in my archives and I found that I had
been doing Twitch at this time.
I was doing live streams on Twitch where I would actually, draw the
whole thing in real time and chat with people while I was online.
And I haven't been doing that since, but it was kind of stressful.
but here I am.
speeded up.
And, I'm looking at my scrap from the internet to know what
the Mexican flag looks like.
And I start drawing.
Now, usually when I start, I draw the main focal point, the main part of
what the drawing is going to be first.
And I'm looking at drawings of eagles and, uh, getting my scrap all set up.
So I'm starting off with their eyes.
I decided to be a little higher on the paper.
Their eyes need to be right next to each other, staring at each other with
matching, space where the pupils are.
So, with that as the main point, everything else grows around that.
You see, I flipped back and forth to look at my scrap for the Mexican
eagle and how the, cactus is.
And, um, I draw on paper with a pencil, usually a pretty hard pencil.
This is a number four pencil.
I'll draw with a lighter pencil to do, more details on top of that.
And I draw on 11 by 17 paper just because I'm comfortable drawing that size
and, that, lets me get all the details and, not feel like I'm struggling to.
fit a smaller space.
so usually these drawings take about four hours.
and I've squeezed this down to about eight or nine minutes so that you can
see the whole process pretty quick.
So here I've, blocked out the whole main, uh, Uh, composition of the thing.
And I'm coming back with the number two pencil hardening up where I think all
the lines should be in it to, to prepare for what would normally be inking.
But for me, I also do my inks in pencil on a piece of vellum, on
top of this, uh, sketch, which is really a pretty tight sketch.
And, so, um, I think you got the idea.
There goes the vellum.
Now I'm starting to do the inking and, uh, you'll see that, I, I draw pretty hard
with, uh, also it's actually also a number four pencil, but it could be a different
kind of paper with a, a softer pencil and.
When I scan this, I, I scan it at very high contrast, and, I treat it as
line art, and people think I'm drawing with ink, and that's, that's good,
because I'm comfortable drawing with pencil, and I find that when I draw
with ink, it kind of stiffens me up.
so, Drawing with pencil, even for the finish, just makes it seem a
little looser, lets me do these kinds of, crosshatchy things and
the feathers a little more easily.
So I do all of my drawings this way, and they're all, um, about equally
big like this, and, it's just a, a comfortable way for me to work.
I know a lot of artists like to do everything on the computer, so many more
of them are using Procreate now, and, I, I should have evolved from what I was doing
seven years ago and probably should be sketching and doing the final on the iPad.
But, you know, the iPad is small for me.
I like the 11 by 17.
I like the being able to, have original art.
I the feel of a pencil and the grip of a pencil and I draw with a chisel point on
the pencil, which I'm comfortable with.
I'm always aware of which way the, the pencil has, has turned to get
the thicks and thins of the lines.
So, um, it's a lot to give up.
Going to an iPad.
I've, I've tried it.
I've been, I've tried Procreate.
I've actually colored a couple of cartoons in Procreate.
I like all the brushes and I like the convenience of it.
I like being able to take it on the road, but, I'm really still
more comfortable drawing this way.
And I like having a big stack of original art.
and that's a lot, uh, for, cartoonists to give up, I think,
to, to Give up their original art.
So you can see I am continuing to do the, what I call inking, which is just,
drawing on the vellum in more pencil.
And, what was, what was frustrating for me too, back in the days when I
was doing Twitch was that I had to maintain conversations with all these
people that are chatting with me.
Sometimes you see them chatting on the left.
and, that required a whole, different set of brain skills, to be able to
chat while I'm thinking about doing the drawing, different parts of my brain
to , chat with people at the same time.
And I thought that was kind of stressful.
So I, I gave it up.
also, people don't want to sit for three and a half, four hours
and watch you draw a cartoon.
They'd rather see it, sped up to eight or nine minutes like we have here.
So, this cartoon seems just as fresh now as it did, seven or eight years ago.
And, I'm drawing it just the way I would if I was drawing it now.
So I think it's still pretty fresh.
I look younger in this video, but I've got my face cropped off a little bit.
So you won't notice that.
And, just a second here, I'm going to scan this and, Then I'll start
to color it in Photoshop, and we will discuss the coloring process
in just a second, because I'm just about done with drawing that cactus.
And then this whole thing will be, uh, the line art will be finished.
So I'll do a scan of the line art in high contrast.
It's, um, 11 by 17, so I have to do it in two pieces and piece them
together on my little scanner.
And, in just a second, you will see me doing the color.
So here comes, that's what it looked like as line art when I scanned it.
And, uh, I will take this, uh, line art and I'll make it a layer in
Photoshop, as you see me doing here.
And that layer will be on top of, the colors.
So the black lines are, are resting on top of the colors as, uh, in CMYK,
K being black, the black lines are K. And here I'm doing, uh, looks like
about a hundred percent yellow, 20 percent magenta, for the orange parts.
I'm looking at eagles to see what colors they are, looking at the Mexican eagle
flag, see what colors that guy has to be.
And, uh, I'm just, starting with the light colors first, and, And moving through and
adding them all under the black lines.
I like CMYK because if an artist is, uh, reproduced correctly, uh,
it'll be like the Sunday Funnies and the black lines will be very
crispy and high resolution instead of fuzzing out with, poor registration
as you often see in newspapers.
But.
Regrettably, most newspapers won't do that, they just switch everything
to RGB because that's how they get their photographs and they use the
same photo process in their software for, uh, everything that they do.
So, I, I lose that nice 100 percent black, but the way that we let,
editors download the cartoons, they, uh, They can pick CMYK or RGB.
A lot of the cartoonists will do just RGB anyway.
That's what you have to do in Procreate.
'cause it handles CMYK so poorly.
so as you can see, I am, uh, I'm just continuing to pick my colors methodically.
I, I do them in a, uh, let's, let's.
Maximize this.
You see on the right I have, all of the layers and on each layer I will,
uh, put, different colors so I can come back and change particular colors.
And, sometimes, um, I won't be happy with a color but I'll have filled it in
nicely so I'll come back and I'll just change the color with the Photoshop tools.
And, that's very efficient.
It's nice to have all of those layers.
And it's nice to be, fairly methodical about, putting the
colors on different layers.
I tend not to give them, elaborate names like the comic book artists do who also
work in layers like this, but, um, I can glance at it and see what they are.
And it just makes me go a little faster.
and I, it looks like I am just about finished here and you're going to see
the, the final product with all of the colors added underneath the black lines.
As a final step, I will, flatten the image and, save it in the
best resolution that I can.
is appropriate for newspapers.
I work at a higher resolution than it's actually going to be, so I
keep a much nicer copy of it on file in an extra high resolution CMYK.
And, looks like we are just about there.
If you, uh, Little last details, and there it is.
I think that's the finish.
I just flattened it.
I did a grayscale image cause we also give editors a choice of a grayscale image
at the same time that they have a color image available to them because a lot of
papers still print cartoons in grayscale.
and, uh, you know, you need to tweak and be a little, happy with
the way that it looks in grayscale, which isn't always what you expect.
The oranges come out dark and other things come out too light, so That's it.
That's how I drew this one.
That's the whole story.
You saw it here first You can get a closer look at the details
Uh, I was happy with this.
If I was doing it now, I think I would make the Trump Eagle have
a more orange face with those little white clown spots that don't
have bronzer around Trump's eyes.
And I, at the time I was thinking of what the Eagle should look
like and with its yellow beak and it's, it's white head, but.
I would just, I would give that up for the orange.
Also, Trump's hair has changed a little bit.
he's, uh, actually recently he's improved his hairdo.
and hasn't been doing that big sweep over, The Fonz kind of thing.
So, that is it, folks.
That's how I did.
Today's drawing, and, uh, it's an oldie but goodie, but, uh, I had that nice film
on file, all of the stuff that you guys are always asking me, uh, show us how you
do it, give us the full how to, that's the full how to, and, Thanks for coming.
Please remember to subscribe.
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It is so cool.
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You can see all the cartoons, and, subscribe on YouTube or
wherever you're watching this.
We do appreciate that.
And, keep watching because we will have more videos and they will be more of the
kind that Uh, we're used to doing with chatting cartoonists and also some of
these new slideshows kind, because we haven't quite decided what people like
better, but, it'll be one or the other.
And, uh, let me know what you think of this, how to, because, uh, I
haven't done this before and, uh, maybe I'll do it again and maybe not.
So thanks everybody.
And, see you later.