The Disney “Comic Book Artist’s Kit”
“Just keep drawing, my friend. Draw like the wind!” - Carson Van Osten
I’m not what you call a natural artist. Even as a teen, I was sometimes so ashamed of my drawings that I would scribble them out in heavy black ink, so no one would ever behold my bullshit. It has taken years of practice to become passable as a cartoonist.
About ten years ago, on my neverending quest to suck less, I came across the “Comic Strip Artist’s Kit” by Disney comic book artist Carson Van Osten. This simple seven-page guide has been the most useful and concise resource on comic drawing that I’ve come across. It also somehow manages to be a funny, delightful romp at the same time.
Van Osten created this guide in 1975 as a way to help his fellow Disney comic strip artists to avoid the mistakes he made for years on his way to mastery. Originally he only printed out 2000 copies and circulated them internally at Disney, but later they were reproduced in The Illusion of Life (1981), which is the most detailed book on Disney traditional animation to date.
I originally came across this guide at Temple of the Seven Golden Camels, a blog about storyboarding. I compiled the images into a pdf for anyone who wants to download or print the guide for closer study. I also have the images posted below.
As it says at the beginning of the guide, a lot of these tips seem super obvious, but even seasoned cartoonists make these mistakes for years. I hope you find this as helpful as I did!
