The brilliant Robert Deas, who created Trailblazers for The Phoenix Comic has been posting drawing tips on Twitter @RDComics
Learn how to draw Troy Trailblazer:
And check out his great tips on difficult-to-draw hands and feet.
Many thanks to Robert Deas and The Phoenix Comic for allowing us to share these with you!
We’ve been updating the list of downloadable worksheets on our Resources pages.
We now have 28 sets of worksheets for you to download!
The latest set of worksheets has been sent to us by Matt Hickey, who runs a Comic Club at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore City.
Here are a selection of the activities and resources he’s created for his Comics Club:
comic club thumbprint adventure bw and comic club thumbprint adventure blank (fold into mini-comics)
draw your pet in space and creepy comic
comic club nametags and comic club nametag secret origin
Many thanks to Matt for getting in touch!
We’ve noticed new comic-making resources and activities appearing online in recent days, so we’re starting to keep a list of online resources here.
Make sure you don’t miss out on The Phoenix Comic’s #phoenixQclub or the great activities provided by Dundee Comic Creative Space’s Digital Comic Club.
Head over to our Online Resources section to find out more. And don’t forget, you can download comic templates here and find all our Comics Challenges here.
This month’s challenge involves taking inspiration from the past.
Take a look at these animals and see if you can turn them into cartoon characters and make comics about them.
Ancient Egyptian hippo c. 1800 B,C.
Iron Age horse from c,650 B,C.
This Owl of Athena is shown on a Greek silver coin from c. 450 B.C.
Roman Dog 2nd Century AD.
Download the Ancient animals worksheet.
This month’s comic challenge comes from the amazing Jess Bradley!
Do get in touch if your group has taken up the challenge, and share some of your comics with us!
You can download the worksheet as a PDF here: Jess Bradley worksheet
You might know Jess Bradley from her Squid Bits comic in The Phoenix.
She has published loads of brilliant, funny comics and also works as an illustrator and a writer.
Thanks to Jess for providing this month’s challenge!
January’s Comics Challenge comes from cartoonist, illustrator and archaeologist John Swogger.
You can download the worksheet or find PDFs of the instructions and the worksheet here.
Thanks to John for providing this month’s challenge!
You can read and download some of John’s archaeology comics for free on the Cadw website.
This month’s brilliant comic challenges come from Lydia Wysocki of Applied Comics Etc.
If you want, you can download a 3×4 grid and a 2×5 grid for drawing your comics, or you can download the worksheets here.
Thanks again to Lydia for providing this month’s challenge!
You can read the excellent Newcastle Science Comics – Asteroid Belter and Spineless (both edited by Lydia) by going here and clicking on the images at the right of the page: http://newcastlesciencecomic.blogspot.co.uk/
This month we’ve got a special SPOOOOKY Comics Challenge for you, courtesy of the amazing Louie Stowell and Freya Harrison, who are here to give you some tips on FACING YOUR FEARS and BUILDING TENSION to make blood-curdlingly, spine-chillingly CREEPY COMICS!
That’s just one of the fun activities in Louie and Freya’s new book / activity pad Make Your Own Comics, out now from Usborne!
Here’s some more info:
This awesome activity pad is jam-packed with everything children need to design their very own comic strips. Create comics about swashbuckling pirates, a space adventure, a rogue robot rampage and many more. With lots of hints and tips on drawing characters, showing emotions, setting the scene and adding speech bubbles and sound effects.
Available now from all good workshops, and also Amazon!
We had a a great time using this activity with Neill’s Comic Club group at the Story Museum. First we created Creepy Creatures based on our own greatest fears – here are some of the results!
Have a go yourselves, we’d love to see what you come up with! IF… WE DARE.
BONUS ACTIVITY! If you need some help getting started drawing monsters, here are some Halloween-themed activity sheets from Neill’s How To Make Awesome Comics, courtesy of The Phoenix!
Download all 4 designs as a PDF!
Happy Halloween, everyone!
Drawing is just one way of making comics. Why not have a go at using collage to make a comic? Collect scraps of coloured paper, left-over packaging and wrapping paper, pictures from old magazines or newspapers, and get cutting and sticking.
With Autumn here, you could also use fallen leaves and seeds to create your characters.
Use the sheets below, or design your own collage comic!
Our Comics challenge this month comes from special Guest Contributor Karen Rubins! Karen is an award-winning cartoonist and a contributor to The Phoenix, and also regularly teaches cartooning and manga workshops for children and young people.
Karen’s Comics Challenge is based around EMOTION, and it’s pretty self-explanatory. Here we go…
If you’re working with a group, it can be fun to get the kids to shout out as many ideas as they can for different emotions, and then try drawing them. You can get kids to act out the emotions – take turns pulling faces for their neighbours to draw!
The next step is to have a go at drawing a comic, using some of these emotions! And if you need some ideas to get started, here’s a Bonus Extra Activity from Kaz, that you can use as a starting point:
Just pick a SUPERLATIVE and a NOUN, and away you go!
Huge thanks to Kaz for letting us share these. We’d love to see whatever drawings and comics your groups come up with – you can leave comments here, or tweet us at @ComicsClubBLOG.
You can find out more about Karen’s work at her website, at karenrubins.com, and find out more about her upcoming classes and workshops here: http://karenrubins.com/workshops/
Comics Club 