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| Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash |
Bill Watterson used simple tools to create the magic that is Calvin and Hobbes. His imagination, sum of life experiences, and personal perspective allowed him to draw with very convincing and appealing results. Creating art for daily publication with a high level of polish (far above the norm for daily strips) required no small amount of imagination and work ethic. However, his actual tools were simple and straight forward. According to Watterson's descriptions of his process in both the Sunday Pages and the Tenth Anniversary Book, he used:
- Ordinary notebook -- "I write my ideas in an ordinary school notebook"
- A pencil
- A small sable brush
- waterproof india ink
- Strathmore bristol board
- A Rapidograph fountain pen for lettering text/dialogue
- overlays for color due to printing limitations in newspapers
Since we unfortunately don't have access to (and probably never will) footage of Bill Watterson working, I've linked to Keith Martist's tutorial that uses a similar, traditional process. The linked video below will shed some light on the process of drawing and inking a series of panels for a comic strip with traditional media. (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0unn-qU9f8g)