It was in February 2004. I was performing some tests with my analog video acquisition card (yes, the ISA Vitec Videomaker bought in 1993). The analog source was, of course, my TV set. And suddenly, I saw a bear! I stopped everything (as I can do when important things occur) and started to draw the quiet bears. It lasted the whole afternoon...
Then I wanted to draw a nice little bear, the kind you had years ago. Unfortunately, it turned out that real cubs do not always look like teddy bears. They are even scary. You do not believe me? Well, have a look below.
This is the first cub I have ever drawn (and inked: But I want to reassure you, no animals were harmed during the process). The grid is the trick I use to check the ratio of my drawings. It is not a fence... Therefore, I can tell you that this cub has the right balance, and the small head was also small on my TV receiver. Just between you and me, I would not like to meet him in my kitchen.
I tried to simplify ("the first element is simplicity, so that the child can understand the song" said Peter Yarrow) to get a nice cub.
Thanks to its bigger eyes, the bear looks nicer. But I still did not like it. I suddenly remembered what Claude Marin once said about comics characters: They look nice and friendly when they have rounded curves everywhere. And this time, I threw away the proportions of the head, and I drew a nice, circular head. The result is the uppermost picture. I like this one!
If you are not tired of seeing bears, have a look below (and believe me, there are more bears on this page than on any other page of my web site. As they are not wild animals, you can sit and watch them for hours).
one for you...
and one for the road!