Adam McMahon's Experiments of the Cartoon Kind » Blog

Just a friendly reminder…

Adam McMahon — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:35:56 +0000

Facial proportions and rhythms

Adam McMahon — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:26:11 +0000

So I was playing around in photoshop, just trying to remember all the facial proportions and rhythyms and before I knew it this image was formed. I thought it looked pretty cool and maybe others might find it interesting/useful… or at the very least, it could give somebody nightmare material. It isn't entirely accurate, but has enough info to remind me of the foundations in the face. Maybe I'll make up a companion to it showing the planes of the face too.

Monkey Run

Adam McMahon — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:05:35 +0000

Here is the first stage of a monkey run I'm working on. It's nice and loose yet with a focus on volume and motion/arcs. Done on 3s for the time being. I'll finesse this a bit more before jumping in and making some nice, detailed drawings. Then I'll spend some time doing some good inbetweens. I need lots of practice on that inbetweening. I always end up with jumping jiggley lines.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Mechanical Walk Cycle – No arms

Adam McMahon — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:35:30 +0000

Here is the first attempt I've taken at a walk cycle in a long, long time. I see plenty of issues with it, but most of them come from my sloppy inbetweening. Overall though I think it is a good step (no pun intending) and I can't wait to get into more personality based walks.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

One thing I want to study after doing this is what happens to the knee when a leg starts bearing the weight on it. You can see in my animation that I have the body continue down a bit as the leg absorbs the weight, which causes the knee to move forward. Then the knee changes direction as he pushes off with that same leg. It gives it a strange feeling that doesn't feel right. If you know the answer, please let me know in the comments.

Construction Week 1: Buckaroo Bugs

Adam McMahon — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:08:18 +0000

Try to copy the images below using proper construction drawing methods to improve your drawing skills. Then share your results by posting a link in the comments section.

Buckaroo Bugs (1944)

Directed by:
Robert Clampett

Animated by:
Manny Gould
Robert McKimson
Rod Scribner

The Buckaroo Bugs short can be found on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Vol. 5

Download this week's images

Click each image to view it full size

Brian Lemay redux: CG

Adam McMahon — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:57:01 +0000

So, after such a long break away from animation I thought it would be wise to redo what I've done previously to catch myself up on what I've learned before moving forward. This time I used the computer to clean things up just a bit. Below are the results. Now that I have these out of the way, look for new stuff soon. My hope is to start in on some walk cycles by next month, in the meantime I still have a few simple, but necessary exercises yet to complete. The explanations for these assignments can be found in previous posts from the first time I did the assignment, but if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll get back as soon as I can.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Spinning Cube

Adam McMahon — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:11:47 +0000

Pencil, Paper, a Ruler… a little knowledge of perspective and basic timing and voila!

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

I'm curious how many of you see a cube rotating counterclockwise, and how many are seeing a strange sort of 3D trapezoid rotating clockwise?

Eye Study

Adam McMahon — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:22:38 +0000

This time in a digital painting. I'm trying to improve my eye for color, no pun intended. This painting was from a reference image where I tried my best to match up the colors without any sort of color sampling or other computer trickery. I feel pretty good about it, I think I came close in my color choices.

Relearning Anatomy – The Skull

Adam McMahon — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:41:03 +0000

So now that I've gotten into a more sculptural program, Zbrush, I'm finding that I want to do more realistic sculpts. I've quickly discovered though that I've spent too much time over in cartoon land and most of that knowledge of anatomy that I learned years ago has escaped from my brain and is running amuck somewhere. So I'm going to start the process of relearning anatomy and hopefully jogging my memory. Tonight I started to rough out a skull in Zbrush. I started from a polySphere though, which is one solid surface, and of course the skull and the jaw bone are separate pieces and the skull has a "hole" in it, or more like a bridge on it, namely the zygomatic arch (ha, I still remembered that). So, now I want to go in and rebuild my model so I can include these features properly. I'm going to attempt to rebuild it entirely in Zbrush to force myself to learn what the program is capable of doing. I'll update the post and let you know the results soon. Here is the rough skull so far.

Click the image for the larger version.

Zsketch – Eye

Adam McMahon — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:03:28 +0000

Well, I have a long, long way to go yet. I can see I need to learn about the different brush settings and alphas and such in order to get a better result on the wrinkles, hair, etc. I did, however, figure out how to make use of the subTools by putting these two surfaces together, the eye and the surrounding facial forms.