Archive for November, 2007

The images I used to draw from for this week's exercises can be found here http://www.adammcmahon.com/blog/2007/11/10/construction-week-2/ and here
http://www.adammcmahon.com/blog/2007/11/10/construction-week-3/

Wow, how quickly I can fall so far behind.  I gotta get in gear and catch up so I can work on week 4's Tex Avery hilarious takes.  I don't have everything drawn yet for week's 2 and 3, and there are more I haven't scanned in.  Some I did scan in aren't even finished.  I figured it would be good to post these anyway since they show how I'm building the drawings up from a foundation to the details.  I'll continue to update this post throughout the week as I finish more drawings.

My friend Cleveland told me an idea for a couple of characters he has had rolling around in his noggin for a while, then asked me if I would try to draw up with my own version of them.  I let the idea simmer over night, then the next day I drew a couple of concept sketches for him.  He liked one of them so much that he applied his own digital painting magic to it over the weekend.

My sketch

Cleveland's digital painting

Check out more of Cleveland's work over at his blog:  http://cleveland-ndf.blogspot.com

I'm starting a new daily routine to improve my drawing skills.  Every day I'm going to draw a few images from some great cartoons of the past.  All cartoons up until the U.P.A. period were drawn to look like they had dimension.  To achieve this, the animators would draw using construction, meaning they would draw out the building blocks of a character (spheres, cylinders, egg shapes, etc) then wrap the surface detail around these forms to help give the illusion of depth.  Its an essential concept to master if you want to draw your own cartoon characters.  You can find more information about construction drawing here:

http://www.adammcmahon.com/blog/2007/11/10/construction-drawing-methods/

So, while I'm practicing construction drawing with my own characters, I'll also be learning from the masters by copying their work and analysing the structure and line as I draw.  Each week I'll post up some screen captures from a particular animated short and throughout the week I'll draw a few images per day.  Then I'll post the results here on my blog at the end of the week.  I encourage anybody else who wishes to improve their drawing skills to participate as well.  You can post the images on your own site/blog and then put a link in the comments section to share with everybody else.  This way we can leave feedback for each other and help one another improve their drawing skills.

I created a section on my blog called "drawing exercises" where you can find the weekly updated images.  The link is just under the title of my blog, or you can find it here:

http://www.adammcmahon.com/blog/drawing-exercises/

I hope to see all your great drawings soon!

Here is a list of great resources for those of you interested in learning how to properly draw, well, anything!  These resouces all demonstrate how to draw cartoon characters using a construction technique.  However, once you understand this concept, it can really be applied to just about anything you wish to draw.

Animation by Preston Blair

Part one
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/media-preston-blairs-animation-first.html

Part two
http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/media-preston-blairs-animation-first.html

Stephen Worth over at the Animation Archive has posted probably the best resource given to us to learn the techniques of construction, and it's free!  This brilliant work was made by the great cartoon draftsman, Preston Blair, and explains in detail everything you need to know about properly constructing a cartoon character.  This is hands down the best resource for learning how to draw cartoons.  If you use it, please show your gratitude by making a donation to the animation archive, the paypal link can be found on their page.

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John has posted many articles on his blog further explaining the use of construction in drawings.  He shows many examples of how cartoons from the golden age used this technique, and explains why learning this skill is so important.  You can find many of his posts regarding construction using the following link:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/construction

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If after reading Preston Blair's book, you just can't get enough of this construction drawing lessons, you can find more information on it with two books by Brian Lemay.  While Brian's draftmanship isn't up to par with Preston Blair's, he still does a great job of explaining the techniques and also shows how you can use the ideas to create characters of your own.

Designing Cartoon Characters for Animation, vol. 1
http://www.brianlemay.com/Books/design.html

Designing Cartoon Characters for Animation, vol. 2
http://www.brianlemay.com/Books/design2.html

Designing Cartoon Characters for Animation, vol. 2 DVD
http://www.brianlemay.com/Books/designingvideo.html

If you know of other resources, post them in the comments section and I'll add them to the post here.

Here is Dracula accusing an Oliver Hardy looking character….. yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either.  This is what happens when you let the right brain have FULL control.

I just realized I'm posting my 'homework' results to these Brian Lemay lessons and I never gave them a proper intoduction.  How rude of me.  Well, here, I hope, is a proper intro for those curious.

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I originally went to school to become an animator.  Unfortunately I made the wrong choice in the school to go to and later found out they had quite a poor animation course.  However during that time I fell in love with 3d modeling and ran with that.  Modeling has served me well.  I have so far loved to do it professionally, and it has given me the chance to work with many great artists first at Glueworks, and now at Blue Sky Studios.  However, I find myself with once again yearning to bring things to life through animation, specifically through traditional animation, drawing each frame of movement.  So now, instead of going to an expensive school, I am going to home school myself.  Luckily there are many resources available to me.  There are my co-workers and animator friends who are open to giving advice, many resources out in internetland, as well as good books to learn from.  One such resource are the books by Brian Lemay.

Brian has much experience in animation.  From his website:

"He worked as an assistant animator on the feature film, Rock and Rule, character designer on the original Inspector Gadget series, and layout artist on Ewoks and Droids, Smurfs, Flintstone Kids, Laser Tag and Punky Brewster.

Brian Lemay was the Co-ordinator of the Classical Animation program at Sheridan College from 1996 - 2000. He was also an Instructor teaching Storyboarding, Layout, Character Design, Animation, Background Painting and Life Drawing from 1988 through 2000."

His book here teaches the fundamentals in a very methodical approach.  Starting simply and adding one element per assignment.  Each assignment reinforces the previous principles, so over time the early learned principles quickly become second knowledge and you don't even think about them.  Once I complete the lessons I'll give my full personal review of the course.  So far though I recommend it for any who wish to learn about, and create animation.

You can find out more about Brian Lemay, and purchase his learning material from his website: http://www.BrianLemay.com

Here is a simple assignment showing an important aspect of animation.  The anticipation/reaction of a movement helps sell the action to the audience.  The anticipation can help the viewer know that a big movement is coming up, just as the reaction can soften the end of a big movement.  Or it can be a more subtle shifting of weight like when your character picks up one leg and the weight shifts to the other foot before the character takes a big side step (anticipation) only to subltely settle into balance after the big sidestep (reaction).

The first assignment that dared to enter into the third dimension.  Giving drawings, and animations, the illusion that they exist in 3d space helps sell to the viewer that it actually exists.  In drawing objects in perspective, an object in the background thats the same size as an object in the foreground will actually be smaller on the page.  Things look smaller the farther away they are.  In animating in perspective, the spacing from frame to frame follows the same principle.   

A larger view of the clock
(click on the image abover to enlarge)