Drawings 006

Hey there

Here's some more stuff.

I always liked this character even in development, He's a classic screwball character.

His name is Robbie, He's a brittish punk-rock dog. My friend can draw him way better, I'm just getting use to his structure which I think it very important. I find with building a character or practicing with an already created character, it's best to simply play around with the construction design very heavily to test it's functionality.

Also I love quirky Zombies, not the violent, crazy bloodfest ones...I like the dumb and funny-looking ones. They're in things like Shawn of the dead, Timesplitters, Simpson Zombies, I can't think of anymore examples.

but I like the horrors that are quirky...A lot of the old horrors were like this, they were terrible at being scaring but they were still fun to watch instead of the other way around. I don't know, maybe I'm just a big wuss.

Why is it called "Squash and Stretch"?

Wait!....

Let me rephase that!

Why is it Only called "Squash and Stretch"?

Think about it...think about all the millions of things you can do to a shape. There is squash and stretch...but what about twisting, bending, folding, containing etc etc

Here's a few to give you an idea...Think about it.

Drawings 005

Hey there


A couple more "dor-INGz" (Drawings)


This character here, the weird dog character wasn't originally designed by me. He was designed by my good old friend Kelven (He's the real master of basic construction), he can draw cartoons ten million times better than me. In fact he's the one that got me into cartoon drawing to begin with. I'll post up some of his stuff sometime, if he lets me.




I finally got around to watching the old Alfred Hitchcock Pshyco, I wasn't to keen on it at first because the only other Hitchcock film I watched was "The Birds"...which felt like a Mary Poppin's Horror. But I can see now why Pshyco was a classic that is everything except the shower scene (People can really ruin a film, blabbering on about it). Anyway here's some (Very weak caricature) drawings of female lead and Alfred.

The smaller drawings there are just playing around with line work.

I had to add in Samuel Jackson, he is the core meaning of "Bad-ass"...No one is more bad-ass then Samuel Jackson...



Catch ya around.

Drawings 004

Here's another one, it was an idea I had for a cartoon where a guy loses his face by putting face remover instead of shaving cream on.


I thought it might be fun and weird, it's not an original idea but...*Shrugs* oh well.

The Missing Animation Principle

Please note that this is my opinion of something I think should be a principle (Afteral the people who started cartoons made their own idealogy on how to make them).
"Direction" (Noun):

1. The Action of Directing; pointing (Something) towards.
2. The path or course of a given movement, or moving body; an indication of the point which the object is moving.

It's something I believe is in a lot of old cartoons but wasn't really talked about clearly mainly cos it's hard to explain but I'll try my best.

It's the logical way to apply most of the principles of animation. It's about thinking (Not feeling) through the intension of the drawing, focusing on the result and not the formula (The Principles).

Now when I say "Direction" I don't mean the character should always be doing something (A character doing nothing can be a point of focus to draw) but whatever it does (or doesn't do) should be the natural number one focus (In my opinion).



Now please don't confuse what I mean by "Direction" with any of the other principles like "Line of Action", "Exaggeration" etc etc...I believe it works into all of them, it supports and selectively chooses what principles to use based on situation. As Popeye says "Can't make a cartoon without an idea" which applies to many factors in an animation.

Look at this pose of Tom, the direction of the pose is he is punching another cat by leaning forward and tension up his shoulders and the another cat is folding up as the line of action and silhouettes are clearly telling us.

If someone was going to try and copy this, they would purely copy the line of action then the pose, the construction and finally the details. I think the process of coping leaves out the "Direction" that is using in creating because you've got the answer right in your face, it leaves the reason to think about where your heading in your own drawing. The intension behind it which I think makes it hard to understand "Direction" when you make your own drawings.

These are some of the things that help line of action, silhouettes, exaggeration and even appeal work well because the artist (Preston Blair) knew where he was going with his drawing, the direction of where he was going.

"Focus on the Result...Not the Formula"

Drawings 003

Here's some drawings of a character I've been working on. I call him "The Mad-Ranter", an experimental character to practice exaggeration and Line of action and mainly to have fun with. His personality is meant to be a computer nerd that rants a lot but that doesn't come across very clearly.

Yes he's a stolen design from "Alice and Wonderland" (I love the conversations in that movie) with glasses and an overbite big mouth but I don't care...it's fun

Drawings 002

I've recently enjoyed playing around with gags. I like the fact that they don't really need to make any sense which takes away a lot of restrictions when thinking about the drawing itself.

In saying this I think the best gags are still driven by a direction to it, it just isn't tied to a whole bunch of meanings or logic or realism or technical factors or formulas or ....

Note: I did this a good year ago, it was sort of the start of playing around with gags. It was very cluttered staging and the characters are as exciting as "a plain boiled egg in a cup" but I still like the gag in general.

Here's a basic gag I had where the character is so overexcited that his head "Asplodes" and then it sort of regrows itself by folding his body inside out through his butt.

In the nature feel of gags, I think a lot of people in the real world enjoy this type of thinking where a character isn't driven by realistic logic but with a different type of logic where it only makes realistic sense on a basic level.

I think the only reason why people don't want to try cartoons is because of that period in cartoons where you could basically predict everything and the fun was knocked right out of the cartoons. I was watching a DVD of old Fred avery cartoons (He's Avery funny guy) and as he went along with his cartoons, I felt he was losing the whole direction and fun of the cartoon.

Just Mah opinion, see ya soon