Raw skills – sketching and drawing

Concept excercise

Found a concept sketch of a character that I finished last winter. Not the best but I’ll draw more bad sketches out of my system before I start feeling more at ease with concept sketching. His name is Tommy. He works and lives in Copenhagen at a media startup. Tommy has the hots for Suzie…

Practice and the need for more

I haven’t been managing my time well the past week. I will have to schedule my time so I can get in at least 2 hours of personal time every day to practice. I did manage to squeeze out two sheets of practice. I blurred out one figure because it was terrible and does not…

Construction and Readable Poses

I drew characters in poses of my own design (no copying). I began with the line of action and worked through construction. John Kricfalusi recommends that I stick with good generic characters like Tom and Jerry, Porky Pig, or Elmar Fudd. The reason behind constructing my poses from these characters is because they are clean…

Universal Conflicts in story

Conflict is always found in story and is the dilemma that is getting in the way of the hero’s goal. Conflict creates tension for the character and puts him in danger. Conflicts occur in stories with enough regularity that it is possible to distinguish and list these conflicts: – Brains vs. Brawn: intelligence against brute…

Hands

Practicing hands. Probably the animators who do the best hands are: Tex Avery, Preston Blair, Bob Clampett. Good to study their style. I practiced a sheet of hands here. Construct the hand by: – drawing the palms and then the finger mass. You should get something that looks like a mitten. – draw in the…

Strengthening the dramatic – Line of Action

The line of action is an intangible artistic concept that is important in establishing the dramatic effect of your drawings. The line of action makes your poses appealing and clear, someone looking at your poses should know what is going on immediately. John Kricfalusi says that when using the line of action, another important principle…

Construction of Pear-shaped bodies

I tackled the construction of simple 2 legged-characters. These studies focused around pear-shaped bodies for the sake of simplicity and clarity. Keeping the body type universal was essential because it allowed me to understand construction, proportion and the flowing details around the construction (clothe, eyes, hair). As John Kricfalusi mentions, pear-shaped bodies are not the…

Preston Blair on Squash and Stretch in regards to the head

Been going through Preston Blair‘s explanation for squashing and stretching, particularly when applied to the head. John Kricfalusi explains that the most varied area on a cartoon’s stretched and squashed head is the mouth area. The cranium essentially retains its volume because it is composed of bone and cartoons lends its credence to reality, so…

Universal Character Archetypes found in all stories

There are always certain character roles that you will see story after story. An archetype by definition is the original, something that serves as a model to be copied, in the case of stories this would be a person, personality, or behavior. Carl Jung, a 20th Century psychoanalyst studied dreams and the unconscious of many…

Checking my copies

I’ve been studying construction, mainly head construction. It’s been a guilty pleasure since I know I should be spending more of my drawing time on figure drawings. However I can say that I’m still learning some useful concepts through studying cartoony drawings. Using Tex Avery as a reference, I’ve been copying his mouse character through…

Figure Drawings

Just a few figure drawings. I’ve missed you pencil.

3-Act Aristotelian plot structure and why all movies seem the same

If you want to understand story-writing and how story is constructed, read Ideas for the Animated Short (written by Karen Sullivan, Gary Shumer, and Kate Alexander). I recommend this book for anyone looking to understand the form and formula of story writing. Aristotle defined a 3-act plot structure 2,300 years ago. The first act established pity…

Sketch/Cartoon Fundamentals

Hello all, As I mentioned in my last post, my postings would be less frequent. I am very very busy and cannot find the time to pursue my personal projects and personal lessons until the end of July. Feeling a little guilty about slacking off, I decided to loosen my hands a bit and picked…