Doing that Bickenbach post the other day got me to thinking about another classic animator who had all his principles down.

Irv Spence, more than any other 40s animator typified everything that represented the style. More than Scribner, Jones, McKimson, Kimball, Moore, anyone I can think of.

That's not to say he's better or more talented than those other giants. I'm saying that he puts all the 40s principles together in one package more completely and confidently than any other animator I can think of. He is great to study.

Irv has:

What's really amazing about Spence, is that he is able to balance so many principles and methods together and still make the result look effortless.

Many animators have some skills more developed than others. McKimson has perfect construction, clarity, dynamics but is not as flowing or cartoony as Scribner. Scribner is very cartoony, spontaneous, full of contrasts, but is less concerned with perfect construction and absolutely balanced poses. He understands them, but lets his spontaneity dominate his creative statements.

The top Disney animators have all the technical principles down, but lack spontaneity, design and specificity.

Spence manages to bring all this stuff together in perfect harmony.


When you look at his drawings, you can clearly see each principle at work-which is why I recommend to cartoon students to use these model sheets to study, copy and learn your basics from. I will warn beginners to stay away from Scribner, because you get distracted by how wild his drawings are and will pick up the things he rushes through (like sometimes hasty construction or unbalanced awkward poses).



Does Irv ever Cheat? Sure...but when he does it's totally on purpose, in the clear and obvious. It's not an uneducated collection of mistakes that some people call "That's my style, man".
In this drawing, George's eyes do not follow the center line of his head. They are tilted to the left-however, they still flow; they don't look flat and don't exist on their own plane in front of the head.

The few cheats are on purpose, either to make a funny expression, or to make a cleaner design.

I always thought Spence was wasted animating for Tom and Jerry cartoons. The animators basically just had to move Joe's drawings from pose to pose using Bill's timing. Joe's poses are great, butdo limited and repetitive. There wasn't a lot of room to express any of your own acting, posing or cartoony ideas. It was a formula.

A good animator could just do what he was told, make it smooth and finish early to go play golf. Which apparently is what Irv did every week. I heard he would complete his quota by Thursday, then take Friday off to go shoot a few holes.

I also heard from other classic animators that he didn't think much about cartoons in his offtime. It was just a good job to him. He was so natural to it all, that I guess he didn't feel like there was anything to explore.

Whether that's true or not, he was a great animator and his stuff is really fun to watch.

Irv's animation for Iwerks is a lot more inventive, cartoony and looser than his Tom and Jerry work. It's much easier to spot his style. Same with his work for Avery. There is also a story that he didn't like working for Tex as much as Joe, because it was harder. Maybe someone knows more about this and can add some stories in the comments.


I always assumed this was Irv's animation but someone has said he thought it might be someone else.

It sure looks like his stuff. Irv always drew teeth with rounded blunt ends, very balloony but flowing bodies and a certain way of drawing toes.

There are a lot of scenes (like this below) in this cartoon that look nothing like the lion in the model sheet that Irv drew,

but these others look just like it and move like other scenes in other cartoons that I know for sure are him.

Either way, it's a brilliantly animated and hilarious scene!

What makes good character designs for animation? This is a difficult subject. The real answer is a talented character designer who understands character. No amount of abstract ingredients can make an artist into a designer if he doesn't have the gift. You can learn technical skills in art, but some talents are so rare that you just either have them or you don't.

Not every great animator is a good designer. In fact, hardly any are. Many cartoon characters just evolved into designs from generic beginnings.If, however you do have the rare gift of design, and you are an animator who understands character then you might be aided in having a discussion started. I say a discussion, because this is such an abstract concept and I've never read anything myself on the subject, so I'm trying to figure it out as we go.






Design itself - in any medium requires purely an aesthetic sense of balance of pleasing shapes or forms. But there are many different occupations that require design and each has its own special requirements. It is a common belief that design must follow function and I'm a believer in this axiom.

An architect doesn't set out to make a building that has a distinct funny personality. He makes a building that first will stand up, and second have a look that matches what the building is to be used for. If he has taste, he will add that on top of the functional aspects of making buildings.


Form - construction:
An animated cartoon character benefits the animator greatly if it has an understandable, mostly logical form.This giant is not really a design. It is a bunch of stock animation forms put together in proportions that suggest a large character. It is strictly functional for animation.

We have to be able to move the forms around in space and if the forms don't work from different angles, are sloppily constructed, the animation is wobbly and unstable - unless we use cheats to get from one disconnected mess of details to the next.


Simplicity
There is a reason that classic animation evolved into simple sensible forms. To make something move you have to draw lots and lots of drawings, so you have less time to spend on details.

Also, the more details you have, the harder it is to control them as they turn around in space.
The more corners and planes you have in your design, the harder it will be to control them in motion.

When a complicated head turns, all the planes and details will shift positions on the head and make the character seem like he is melting.


Can Be Moved Easily Pleasing Balance Of Shapes
Some artists, like Craig Kellman have a natural affinity for styles and shapes. They have pure design eyes.
Gene Hazelton took a generic cartoon Baby structure and used his good eye for balance to compose the features in a pleasing way. He also drew the details with a nice combination of curves and corners. Pebbles is not really a design. She's too generic, but Gene applied a lot of style to these drawings to make it look more like it has a design. Gene has designed some very distinct characters though. Here he is pleasing Joe Barbera, who liked conservative shapes.

A talented stylist can make a generic design look much more pleasing. Style is different than design.Chuck Jones has a natural eye for pleasing shapes and forms. He understands construction and in some of his designs, used strong contrasts of forms, shapes and proportions to create animatable, yet distinct and beaitifully balanced and designed characters.
Irv Spence too.
Tom Oreb