Sunday 6 April 2014

Gerhard: Preliminary Drawings

Gerhard's preliminary drawing and final printed version for
Cerebus #295 (October 2003)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
(Click image to enlarge)
GERHARD:
(by email, 22 March 2014)
What I used to do was take the page after Dave had finished with it, lay tracing paper over top of it and then I would outline the characters, word balloons and sound effects with a fine point marker. I would then flip the tracing paper over and pencil my part onto the back. After that was done I would flip the tracing paper right side up (with the pencil side down) back on top of the original art and transfer the pencil onto the original by tracing over what I had done which would leave a light pencil image on the illustration board. I would then tighten up those light pencils, if needed, and then finally ink it. I know that sounds like I drew everything three times; that's because I drew everything three times.

Gerhard's preliminary drawing and final printed version for
Cerebus #292 (July 2003)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
(Click image to enlarge)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really starting to miss the daily updates.

- Reginald P.

Jeff Seiler said...

Har-dee-har-har. BTW, I have seen the finished tracing paper of that scene of Bear and She-Shep and Cerebus and son in the boat fishing. It's framed on the hallway wall where Matt and Paula Dow live (if they still live there) in Two Rivers, Wisc. Dave sent it, along with another couple tracing pages, to Matt to thank him for giving him (Dave) a gold watch to celebrate his "retirement" from Cerebus. I think Matt gave it to him at SPACE in '05. If any of you can ever get your hands on some of those tracing papers (especially if they're finished pencils), you will NOT be disappointed. Dave sent me some, including the finished pencils tracing paper of the drawing he did of me for CRIC #1. He changed the words in the word balloons, though, to refer to my 50th birthday, as a not-so-subtle reminder that he had TOLD me not to take up with the crazy Canadian lady. She had already been writing to him for some time before I got to know her and he knew she was crazy. Hell, she was one of only two people I know of who Dave has had to actually insist that they never call him at home again, ever. Man, I could write a book about her. Man, I should. But, I digress. It never occurred to me until I read today's post that Gerhard actually did draw much of Cerebus THREE times. And, knowing him, he drew all three as meticulously as he did the finished inking. Somebody should write a book about HIM.

Jeff Seiler said...

BTW, Dave used to throw away all of their tracing paper pages until someone (I think it was Margaret) told him that he could be selling them on E-bay. She convinced him and he did for a while, by way of someone posting them for him on E-bay. Pretty sure that's over with, though.