Bluth's Frozen Banana Stand

Here’s an illustration of Bluth’s Original Frozen Banana Stand from Arrested Development.

A sketch depicts a colorful drawing of a banana stand labeled Bluth's Original Frozen Banana with two people inside.

I started with a pencil sketch to draw the outline of each building.

A spiral-bound sketchpad features a line drawing with geometric shapes and curved lines.

Zine: Movies I never want to see again

“Movies I never want to see again” is about movies I watched one time and do not want to watch again. This doesn’t mean they’re bad movies! But something about them makes me feel like once is enough.

I drafted this zine by hand and then I made it in Canva. The popcorn bucket on the front cover is modified from Terrance Barksdale’s photo on Pexels.

A person is holding a red zine, titled Movies I never want to see again, with a small illustration of a spilled popcorn bucket. A person holds a red zine featuring brief commentary on the movie District 9. A red zine with commentary on the movies Annihilation and Jupiter Ascending. A red zine with commentary on the movies 2001: A Space Odyssey and TRON. Five copies of the zine Movies I never want to see again, fanned out on a yellow background.

Metropolis at night

Here’s an illustration of the Metropolis skyline at night.

A sketch of a city skyline at night features illuminated buildings, against a starry sky.

I started with a pencil sketch to outline each building.

A pencil sketch of a cityscape is drawn on a spiral sketchbook.

I started painting by covering the large areas first: slate gray for the sky, black for some buildings, and gray for some buildings.

A sketchbook features a stylized painting of a cityscape with abstract buildings and a central circular element.

Then I added in all the details.

A stylized cityscape illustration features tall buildings and a starry night sky.

Walking into Hill Valley

Here’s an illustration inspired by a scene in Back to the Future: Marty walking into Hill Valley.

A person wearing a red vest is walking on a road toward a sign that reads Hill Valley 2 miles.

I made this as part of a course on illustrating with Posca pens. The assignment was to use two shades of the same color as the main colors in the piece. Since a lot of this image is grassy fields, I chose two shades of green. I kept Marty’s outfit realistic (orange vest and blue jeans) to signify that he’s out of place…or, more accurately, out of time.

Here are some thumbnail sketches I did prior to painting the scene. I wanted to test out colors–what looked good for the grass and Marty’s outfit.

A series of four simple, hand-drawn thumbnails depicting a person walking along a path with a sign that reads Hill Valley 2 Miles.

And here’s the simple pencil sketch I started with.

Auto-generated description: A simple sketch of a person walking along a road with a signpost in the background.

The Candy Bar from Jimmy Neutron

I took an online course on illustrating with Posca pens taught by James Chapman. He has posted lots of his sketchbook pages to his Instagram.

I had a couple Posca pens for a few years, but I hadn’t done much with them. I saw this course and thought it would be a great way to practice with Posca pens.

The course covers how to create a pencil sketch to get the composition down. Then it explores various color schemes to determine how to color the illustration. I especially like the challenge of limiting the number of colors used.

I like the process I learned in this course. It takes me several hours to finish an illustration, but I really enjoy the time I’m spending learning and practicing. I’ll share my illustrations here as I finish them.

The course encourages choosing a theme that will motivate you to keep working on sketches. I chose places in movies, TV shows, and books. First up is The Candy Bar from Jimmy Neutron.

Here’s the pencil sketch:

A pencil sketch depicts a cityscape with a focus on a Candy Bar building featuring an oversized candy sculpture on its roof.

I chose to go with realistic colors, so I used Posca pen colors that are close to what this location looks like in the show.

Here’s a progress photo, with the larger areas of color done:

A colorful drawing depicts a cityscape with buildings, a dome-shaped cafe, and large candy sculptures on the roof.

And here’s the finished illustration:

A whimsical illustration of a candy-themed shop with colorful lollipops on the roof, surrounded by modern buildings under a blue sky with clouds.

I really enjoyed making this as my first attempt at a Posca pen illustration!

Zine: My 20-minute rule for movies

“My 20-minute rule for movies” is about how I don’t feel guilty when I stop a movie I don’t enjoy. I give any movie a fair chance, but I’m okay turning it off if it’s not for me.

I made this zine in Canva. It’s 12 pages, printed in black and gray scale on orange paper.

A small orange booklet is titled My 20-minute rule for movies with a film reel design on the corners. Page 1 of the zine with text about someone's movie preferences and their approach to deciding if they want to continue watching a movie. An open orange booklet features the text watching movies. An orange zine titled My 20-minute rule for movies is decorated with film strip graphics. A hand is holding an orange zine with the text My 20-minute rule for movies on it.

Zine: How to Deal with Small Talk

“How to Deal with Small Talk” is a collection of tips for how to handle small talk conversations.

Maybe you’re like me and small talk drags you down. And maybe, like me, you have to put up with it anyway. Hopefully this zine can help.

This zine is printed in full color. I made the background pages using blue, purple, and red inks. Some pages have digital illustrations. All the text is typed.

It might be difficult to tell from the photos, but I tried a new page size for this zine, and I like it! A 12-page zine, printed double-sided on one 8.5x11-inch sheet of paper. The finished zine is about 3.5 inches high x 4 inches wide and bound with staples. And these dreamy cotton candy colors are on every page.

Glorious.

A zine titled How to Deal with Small Talk: a practical guide. A zine page with encouragement to pretend to be a person who likes small talk, set against a colorful background. A pastel-colored zine page displays the phrase Leave them with a sense of mystery. A hand holds a zine titled How to Deal with Small Talk: a practical guide. A zine titled How to Deal with Small Talk is placed on a textured surface.

Original or the clone

The Philly Zine Fest is accepting submissions for their Anthology zine. I made a collage with a bit of text I’ve been waiting to use somewhere.

The background is photocopied aluminum foil (for real!). I simply cut a piece of aluminum foil and made a copy of it. Then I crinkled the aluminum foil a bit and made another copy. That became the background for this page.

The woman’s face and hands are stock photos taken by Ospan Ali, available on Unsplash. The text is something I wrote a while ago and hadn’t found a place for…until now. 😉

This collage is a very different style for me, and I really like how it came out! The great thing about submitting to zines is that there’s room to experiment. It feels like low stakes, since it’s only one page.

A collage of fragmented human faces with text overlays reflecting on the concept of identity and originality.

Halloween collage

I contributed a page to Webs Across the Campfire, vol. 2, a special Halloween zine from Vlasinda Productions. Copies are available in their shop.

For my page, I wanted to make a collage. I had paper from my ink color experiments to work with. I cut these into shapes for clouds, a moon, and pumpkins.

Paper collage elements for a moon, purple clouds, spider webs, and pumpkins.

For the spider webs, I drew on black cardstock with a white gel pen. Then I photocopied the webbing, so I had sections to work with.

Here’s the finished page, with text I printed and glued on, a clip art house I modified, and black cardstock for the hill.

A silhouette of a haunted house with glowing windows is set against a purple sky with a large moon, surrounded by pumpkins and spider webs, accompanied by text about fear and knowledge.

How to lay out a zine in Canva

When I worked on my zine, Timers for Travelers, I finished the writing first. I knew I wanted illustrations throughout the zine, some hand-drawn and some digital. I decided to lay out the zine in Canva so that I could combine text, digital elements, and hand-drawn elements.

I’m really happy with how the zine came out, so I want to document my process. This is less a tutorial of Canva and more a walk-through of how I used it to put together my zine.

Canva is a free tool for graphic design. Although there are paid tiers, everything in this post was done with the free version. You can use Canva directly in an internet browser and there are apps you can download, too. If you haven’t used Canva before, you’ll need to create a free account.

Create a new file in Canva

Click on the Create a new design button and then click on Custom size. Enter the dimensions for your zine pages. For example, a quarter page zine would be 4.25 inches wide x 5.5 inches high. This file becomes your working file.

Make your zine

Make the pages of your zine with whatever method works for you. You can write text directly in Canva. I find it easier to do all my writing first in a word processor (I use Google Docs) and then copy and paste text into Canva.

Canva has a lot of graphic elements and images you can use for free. All the photos available in Canva are stock images from Pexels and Pixabay, and they are royalty-free.

Since you can upload images into Canva, you can draw on paper and scan pages. Then upload your drawings into Canva, and add them to your working file.

Note: Add page numbers last! If you’re making pages and don’t know what order they’re going to be in yet, don’t number pages. Instead, add page numbers after you have pages arranged in the order you want for the finished zine.

I like leaving my working file as is, like a draft. So when it’s time to print my zine, I make a copy of the working file (File » Make a copy). This becomes the print file.

Since the pages will be printed on 8.5 x 11-inch paper, cut, folded, and stapled, they need to be arranged in the correct order for printing.

To figure out the print order of the pages, I make a mock-up version of the zine with scrap paper. There are lots of ways to do this. Here’s how I figure out page order.

Go to the print file in Canva and rearrange the pages for printing. You can drag and drop pages or use the up and down arrows above each page to change where they are.

When I’m moving a lot of pages around, I like working in grid view. Click on the button in the bottom right of the screen that looks like a stack of papers with a number on it.

Screenshot of a zine layout in grid view in Canva.

When you’re done arranging pages, download the print file as a PDF. Click on the Share button (top-right). Then click on Download. For “file type,” choose “PDF Print.”

Open the PDF file on your computer. Go to print settings. Find the option for pages per sheet, and change this to 4. This will print 4 of your zine pages on one 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. Make sure two-sided printing is selected.

Print your zine. Cut the pages in half horizontally and then fold them. If you ordered the pages correctly in Canva, then the pages should be in the correct order when you assemble them as a booklet.