Expressions

Below are the expression sketches I created during my fifth term at Animation Mentor.

Stu and Huckleberry

Below are two Animation Mentor Stu poses showing excitement and devastation. Which is which?



Here is a study sketch of Huckleberry Hound I did the other day.

Animation Mentor

This January I started taking classes with Animation Mentor. Here is the first pose I created using their Stu rig.

Modern Times

Some quick sketches I drew from Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.

Flamenco

Adding some sketches I drew using Blood Wedding as reference. It's a fine film directed by Carlos Saura.

Victorious Rabbit

Here is another Preston Blair study sketch overlapped with the original to show my mistakes (and a couple things I actually got right). Upper torso is nearly spot-on. However, the lower body and tail are too small, especially on his right side. The tail is also skewed. The left foot is too small and the angle is off. The right foot, though, is very close except is needs to be slightly more elongated. Face-wise, his teeth are too small but everything else is fairly close. Arms and hands are also very close to the original, but his right hand should be a little bit bigger. Right leg should be thicker.

Some quick hand sketches from the cover of Blair's Cartoon Animation:


Lastly, a quick sketch of the Pip Boy from Fallout 3:

Another Angry Bear + Happy Pup

I overlapped two more study sketches from yesterday. These are turning out to be really eye opening experiences.


This one turned out to be fairly close, but still lacks the appeal of the original drawing. Once again, I screwed up on the ears. The right one is about the correct size, but his left ear needs to be much larger because of perspective. The nose is too small and the snout is slightly elongated. The mouth should stretched open a bit more. Lastly, his right eye should be larger to push the three-dimensionality and the eyebrow should come up more.


The line of action on this happy puppy is correct, but unfortunately the tilt of the head is way off. His front left foot should be bigger which is yet another perspective mistake. The body is generally too thin, especially the chest, which should come out more and connect closer to the head. The back leg is spot on.

Angry Bear Study

I scanned in a Preston Blair study sketch I did yesterday and overlapped it with Preston's original drawing. John K. recommended doing this direct comparison on his blog, so I thought I'd give it a shot. It's easy to see why he recommends it, because it makes the faults in my drawing ultra-obvious.

The ears are too small, with the right one attached in the wrong spot. His right eye needs to come in and down a little bit. His jowls are too droopy and the left side is attached too low. The bear's nose is angled incorrectly and the snout's shape is slightly off and the perspective is ruined because of those mistakes. The mouth, hair and left eye are very close. In general, though, my bear is too flat and needs to be more 3-dimensional.

The Holy Trinity of Animation Books

While there are a number of fine books on animation, the following three books are absolutely essential to every animator.

The Illusion of Life by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.


Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair.

The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams.

Why all three? Isn't at least one of them good enough on its own? Yeah, each one stands well on it its own. I believe owning all three is important because, while there is some overlap, they are dealing primarily with different aspects of animation.

The Illusion of Life is most notable for its HISTORY and THEORY. You're going to be doing a lot of reading on this one. Preston Blair's book is concerned mainly with DRAWING and CONSTRUCTION. Lastly, Williams' book is about the PROCESS and really dissects actions, particularly walks. It is like they are three galactic lions and together they form Voltron.*


*Technically, he was formed with five lions but the metaphor is still good.

Mr. Poof's Replacement

Picked up a new scanner so here's a real scan of the Preston Blair suspicious dog, in which you can actually read my notes:


Here's another older study from Preston Blair, a bunch of hands:


Lastly, a recent study sketch of Professor Layton all up in your grill:

Mr. Poof

A study from Capcom's Okami Art Book:


I started to scan in some more older stuff I wanted to post, but my scanner died with a loud pop and a puff of smoke. Dammit.

Using my cell phone as a temporary scanning solution, here's a quality image of another Preston Blair study:

Some Sketches Old and New

From many moons ago, some dog studies from Preston Blair's book Cartoon Animation:

From a couple weeks ago, a study from Jack Hamm's great book Cartooning The Head & Figure:
From a couple months ago I think, I brought together some sketches I made while watching a Ren & Stimpy episode. Love the design of the droopy ghost:
Lastly, from today, some studies from the manual of the video game Professor Layton and the Curious Village:
I am going to make it a habit of not only putting the date on all the things I draw, but keeping track of how long I spent on each drawing. As you can see in the image, I spent 45 minutes on the full body Layton and 20 minutes on the closeup.

The Effects of Drawing Everyday

The saying goes the best way to get better at drawing is to draw everyday. Sounds good in theory but how about some proof? I found a perfect candidate online and, if you play video games, chances are you've heard of him. Mike "Gabe" Krahulik has been the drawing half of the creative team behind the online comic Penny Arcade since its inception in November 1998. I went through their archive and chose a single comic from each year, mostly at random but making sure the choices included the protagonists Gabe and/or Tycho. Presenting them in chronological order really showcases Mike's progression as an artist.

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004
2005

2006

2007

2008

Mike's drawings have come a long way in those ten years. Somewhere around 2003 or so a unique style started to emerge and I think 2005 was really a breakthrough year. He's a real powerhouse of an artist now.

This is what happens when you draw everyday for 10 years.

Lethargic

*drool

Satisfaction

The theme for today's daily pose was "satisfied," as in full or the opposite of hungry. There's probably a better word for it, but I can't think of it right now. I used yet another Maya rig I found online. This one is called Sergio and it's a beautiful model with a pretty robust rig. Am I satisfied with this pose? Eh, it's okay, but he seems a tiny bit off balance.

He's contemplating seconds.

Fear Is the Mind Killer

The topic for today's daily pose was "fear." I chose to use another downloaded rig, which is called Generi. The inspiration for the pose is vaguely based off a shot from the original Diabolique film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. In a key scene the protagonist clutches her weak heart in absolute terror. I had some trouble manipulating the fingers and couldn't get the hand clutching I was going after. Same thing with the hand on the wall. It doesn't look planted to the wall. I refused to miss my self-imposed deadline and go past midnight, so I left the problems unresolved.

I'm scared... of this terrible lighting.

Itchy Tasty

It's high time I posted something besides the daily poses. This is a (crappy) sketch I made for a project a friend and I are working on in our spare time. I will probably post more sketches of zombies sometime soon. I do like the greenish glow to the eyes. Not sure why he has curly eyebrows. I guess I just wanted to draw squiggles.

Could you tell me which way is the library? I'm looking for a book on BRAINS!

I definitely need to draw more, but this is a start at least.

Trepidation Revisited

I wasn't too thrilled with my first take on the "trepidation" theme, so I ended up creating two more pose variations. The first is somewhat generic, but it gets the idea across I guess.

generic

The second is more inspired. I was sure right up to the end it was going to be unsuccessful, and yet it turned out the strongest of the three, I think. It's a tight, constricted pose, but it has a charm the others lack.

not generic

Trepidation

"Trepidation" was the theme for today's daily pose. I wanted to use Maya this time around, so the character I chose to use is third version of a downloaded rig called IK Joe. I quickly modeled the diving board in Max and then imported it into the Maya scene. There's a subtle bend in the diving board, which turned out nice. I don't think I really hit the theme. To me, it's not screaming trepidation. But I'm out of time and it will have to do.

Here goes nothing.

Cryin' in the Rain

Here's the next addition to the daily pose series. Since the first theme was happiness, it seemed appropriate to have sadness as the second theme. This image was made about a year ago, so it's kind of a cheat, but it fits the theme perfectly. I created and textured this model based on some ultra-obscure video game character. You've probably never heard of him.

The most depressed plumber ever.

The idea was inspired by this classic image from the somethingawful forums:

One sad dude.