Sharpening The Tools

Hey, sorry for the late reply...I'm working on some storyboards at the moment.

Anyway I wanted to talk about construction a bit.

Personally when I can't think of anything to draw, I basically just practice the basics such as construction and the ability to change the shape. I believe that the more I draw these shapes and practice changing them, the more likely I can draw them better and with better control (As you can see some of them ain't as solid as I'd like them to be).

You see when I was still at school, I had to make a choose between two different subjects (There were others but these were the two I wanted to try) which were Art and Graphics. Now my dad is pretty skilled at drawing goldie oldies so I felt he could teach me the art side of things and so I went with Graphics.

Unfortunately my dad didn't teach me much about Art and for years I felt that Graphics was the wrong choice for me and that I missed out on Art but now I'm starting to understand it because of the strong influence of construction, perpective and materials within the subject.

So if I was to recommend a subject to cartoonist that are still at a young age, I'd say Graphic is a good start.

Drawings 008

Wow, John's back.


Anyway I quickly drew up this after kelven emailed me a bunch of character drawings of the main character of a project we're working on.

I'll show and tell more about it when I make a new blog purely for that project.

No more stuff from Ol' John

You may have heard or seen or witnessed it but John has locked off his blog to view only "invited readers".

Yip I'm locked out too. I'm pretty bad at writing anger letters (As you can see with my grammer and spelling) Period! so I decided to just draw out my emotions about the whole situation...It helped.

At the end of it as you can see by the random psycho expression at the bottom of the page that I had lost any energy or emotion behind how I felt about the situation and just started having fun.

Oh well John, it's been fun I've learnt a hell of a lot and I'm going to miss the lessons. Take care.

Anyway this blog is still open and kicking to the public, so viewers don't be afraid to have a look around.

Dracula_Caricature

Now to be honest with you, I hate vampires...but with this classic with Bela Lugosi in it I quite enjoyed.

His character had honor, charm and grace to him, I always liked these villians. I know there are people who believe that villains are meant to be hated but Dracula is also the main character (Well at least to me)...It's his name on the film, so he should be an enjoyable character.

He had these funny deadpan stares, I think they're awesome:

He was such a fun character that I decided to draw a few poses of him:

I hope you enjoyed it.

Dismemberment does exist in Cartoons

Now "Dismemberment" to me isn't a rule or a principle or even a habit but more of a simple reminder that you ain't restricted to reality with cartoons. This is a strong side of cartoons purely in general which is odd that we don't see it being used that much nowadays.

Here's a famous scene from one of Tex Avery's most famous cartoons (I think) "Red Hot Riding Hood". If you've seen "The Mask" then you've seen this scene.

Now in this scene you'll notice if you slow it down really slowly, you'll notice "Dismemberment" in action.

This is where is it kicks into action, it's only a quick anticipation part and part of him is off scene but it's there. The head is unnaturally pointing up while the body is merely slightly twisted. Now you may not think much about this but it's technically impossible for a "normal" person to twist into this pose.

I've tried it myself.

In reality, the human head can't stretch like that in a cartoon but that doesn't mean you can't still draw poses that defy reality.

But remember above this, the direction of the pose is more important. Don't throw it in without a purpose but remember that the option is still open when you need to.

Slap-Happy Lion 02

Ok, sorry about the late post...I don't always have a lot of time to hop on the COM-POOH-TUR but I try.

Here's some more from the model sheet "Slap-Happy Lion", I started drawing the mouse as well:
The second one of the lion is pretty stretched but the effect is still there...at least I think...

And here is some random proof that I don't trace my drawings and I do do what I talk about (Printing out the model sheets first).

and...

Ya all come back now, ya hear?

Slap-Happy Lion 01

Hey there

Taking the advice of John, I've been playing a model of a character I've always liked.


I can never remember the names of the characters in a lot of Tex Avery cartoons mainly because the names were barely mentioned...I just remember that this character was just called "The Lion".

As I've mentioned before, I don't really enjoy coping characters because I've got to trying and guess what was the motivation behind the character's action, what was the direction of it all?

I learnt a few factors of what John meant by Hiearchy, I noticed that to constructed the nose I had to work through 3 forms of structure to get a solid detail nose...or at least I think it's a solid nose.

...Did anyone say "Ears"?

Of course when I lined them up it's clear that the original and my attempt are different.

Half way through it I noticed the intension behind the drawing and knew it wasn't going to be correct, I remember this scene the lion is getting ready to roar...so oddly the drawing is leaning forward.

Here's my "Tin-foil hat" principle...Direction. It's shows how my point of Direction is so important, would you really buy a car with no steering wheel?

I tried doing that thing with photoshop by lining up both the layers...but the whole thing just gave me a headache...

I hate trying to view things like that on computers...I even print out the model sheets because it's easy to shift the paper around and get a better idea of it...

Imagine trying to use a computer or laptop like a piece of paper. I think I'll try and draw some of the character.