http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-1-construction.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-2-squash-and.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-3-how-to-check.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-lesson-4-2-legged-characters.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-5-line-of.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/06/animation-school-lesson-hands.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/06/animation-school-lesson-6-construction.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/06/animation-school-7-when-generic-is.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/06/animation-school-8-proportions-affect.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/01/animation-school-lesson-9-_116873606139658339.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/01/animation-school-lesson-9a-tom-and.html
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/03/animation-school-lesson-10-copy-old.html
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Thanks to Chris DeCarlo and others for your support
Chris must have thought some of my lessons, advice, stories and cartoonist profiles were worth something to him because he dropped 25 big ones on that Paypal button to the right of the blog. He's the first one to do it, and no one even prompted him. Maybe some day this blog will find a way to support itself.
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-2-squash-and.html
Send me a picture and maybe a note on what inspired you to donate, so I can feature you Chris, and thanks again!
You're one of the good ones.
Your pal,
John K.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Pedro Vargas - The Winner
I think it's great that so many cartoonists are taking the trouble to learn how the classic animators discovered animation's fundamental skills and properties.
Anyone who does this consistently will learn fast.
Here's one test that I thought was particularly good.
Not only did Pedro figure out the timing and the flow of the animation, he made sure Bosko looked like Bosko and that his proportions and volumes stayed consistent which is what a director would normally want.
Good drawing is every bit as important as smooth movement in animation.
Bosko_study
Uploaded by PMVR
Anyone who does this consistently will learn fast.
Here's one test that I thought was particularly good.
Not only did Pedro figure out the timing and the flow of the animation, he made sure Bosko looked like Bosko and that his proportions and volumes stayed consistent which is what a director would normally want.
Good drawing is every bit as important as smooth movement in animation.
Bosko_study
Uploaded by PMVR
Go read how he approached the assignment logically:
http://pipsqueakscorner.blogspot.com/2007/08/mr-slither-animation-john-ks-animation.html
Good job, Pedro! Now apply some of this to your own animation! Use the beats!
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Bounce Cycles By Commenters
Well, a few people who visit this blog are really smart!
They are actually copying classic cartoons because they want to learn the best way to animate.
If they keep at it, they will surpass many folks who just kind of wing it and try to teach themselves.
***BTW, count your drawings. There should be 24 drawings in the whole cycle, and each one shot for 1 frame-at 24 frames per second...
Here they are:
Treasure
Groo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woFiSFeTzLY
Mad Taylor
http://madsbasement.blogspot.com/
Anne-Arky
I think Anne just made one up...
Chet
OK, Chet. I watched it. It's good but you shot it on "2's". You need to shoot it on "1's". Just one frame for each drawing. Then it will move faster-it should be 2 beats per second. 12 drawings per beat....makes sense?
Bosco Swing by ~Thunderrobot on deviantART
Guilherme
http://2dflashart.blogspot.com/2007/08/john-k-bosko-exercises.html
I can't get Guilherme's to play either, but maybe you can
Matt Greenwood
http://mgreenwood.blogspot.com/2007/08/bosko-animation-study.html
Matt's action is good, but the volumes keep changing.
Kate Yarberry
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=15097788
Now if all these dedicated folks keep studying the old stuff, they might get to the point where they can animate as well as this:
Milt Gross (thanks to William) - note how everything moves o musical beats!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl28k_jitterbug-follies-1939-milt-gross
So where are the rest of you wanna-be animators?
They are actually copying classic cartoons because they want to learn the best way to animate.
If they keep at it, they will surpass many folks who just kind of wing it and try to teach themselves.
***BTW, count your drawings. There should be 24 drawings in the whole cycle, and each one shot for 1 frame-at 24 frames per second...
Here they are:
Treasure
Groo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woFiSFeTzLY
Mad Taylor
http://madsbasement.blogspot.com/
Anne-Arky
I think Anne just made one up...
Chet
OK, Chet. I watched it. It's good but you shot it on "2's". You need to shoot it on "1's". Just one frame for each drawing. Then it will move faster-it should be 2 beats per second. 12 drawings per beat....makes sense?
Bosco Swing by ~Thunderrobot on deviantART
Guilherme
http://2dflashart.blogspot.com/2007/08/john-k-bosko-exercises.html
I can't get Guilherme's to play either, but maybe you can
Matt Greenwood
http://mgreenwood.blogspot.com/2007/08/bosko-animation-study.html
Matt's action is good, but the volumes keep changing.
Kate Yarberry
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=15097788
Now if all these dedicated folks keep studying the old stuff, they might get to the point where they can animate as well as this:
Milt Gross (thanks to William) - note how everything moves o musical beats!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl28k_jitterbug-follies-1939-milt-gross
So where are the rest of you wanna-be animators?
Friday, July 20, 2007
Animation School 7 - When Generic is a Good Thing
Remember when I talked about the two different types of cartoonists?
One conservative, the other wild and crazy?
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/04/2-types-of-cartoonists-origin-of.html
These two types worked together all through the 30s and came up with a blended style-the 40s style of pears and spheres and sausages style which is my favorite type of animation.
If you are a young cartoonist (or a geezer who wants to improve his skills) who wants to learn the best way to draw and animate, you should study this approach in its most generic form.
When is "generic" good?
When it is highly skilled as in these Tom and Jerry model sheets below.
Generic is good for study.
If you are trying to teach yourself the principles of good cartoon drawing for example, it's best to study bland cartoons that don't have individual style. Strong style will distract your attention away from the underlying principles that are more important.
Disney helped popularize a style in the late 30s that most other studios adopted-the pear shaped, squash and stretch style.
It's not really a "style" though.
It's a drawing method that makes animation fluid and sensible.
It's a collection of principles that everyone in animation used in the 1940s.
It developed out of the rubber-hose style but added some techniques to help smooth out the animation and give it weight.
3-dimensional but cartoony construction:
The characters are rounded and turn in space like real objects.
But unlike real anatomy, the characters are built out of simple shapes-mostly pear-shaped bodies and round or oval heads with sausages for limbs.
In a strange way, they are real because they are 3-dimensional, but they are also cartoony, because they are made up of forms that aren't anatomical.
All the details of the characters wrap around the major forms that the characters are built from.
The eyes obey the perspective and direction of the position of the head, etc. They don't exist on their own planes.
Squash and Stretch:
These 40s characters bend and stretch and squash like soft rubber.
Line of Action:
The poses are usually strong and simple and all the details of the characters flow along the line of action.
Clear Silhouettes:
The poses usually have strong silhouettes-which helps them read, especially when the actions can be so fast.
Organic Forms:
Unlike rubber-hose cartoons which have very simple curves that have the bends right in the middle of the curve, these 40s style characters have more complex flowing curves which makes them feel more organic like skin and guts-although no bones.
The 7 Dwarfs are perfect examples of this style of animation. They are completely generic designs-meaning they really have no design at all-but they do have all the principles that make up the classic cartoon style.
Here's a frame from Chuck Jones' Barbary Coast Bunny, one of my favorite cartoons. The design and style is a more modern 50s approach, yet it still retains all the principles of 40s style cartoons. This type of cartoon is not good for beginning cartoonists and animators to study from, because the shapes are more specific, and they have angles and more complex design elements.
This is much harder to study and grasp than a Tom and Jerry or earlier Disney or Warner Bros. cartoon. It's more interesting graphically for sure, but the more complex design elements will distract you from learning the principles underneath.
Here are some frames from Bob Clampett's Gruesome Twosome. This is a scene by Rod Scribner. It's much more exaggerated than a Tom and Jerry cartoon and has slightly more complex design elements in it.
It's still based on all the same principles though, so once you understand the principles you will be able to then start exploring your own style and variations of designs.
I always recommend to animation students to draw Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig and Tom and Jerry when learning.
Why?
They are fairly simple and very rounded.
When you are animating you have to turn out a lot of drawings.
The more complicated the drawing, the longer it will take you to make the animation work.
NEVER use your own character designs when you are learning to animate.
It will slow your progress.
Use characters that were designed by top Hollywood professionals that already work in 3 dimensions and are simple. You will progress much faster that way.
This frame is from Chuck Jones' Elmers' Candid Camera. Jones hasn't developed his strong personal style yet and is just trying to make the characters look solid and move well. This cartoon is a great one to study for rounded smoothly moving characters.
This is from a later Chuck Jones cartoon and is much more complex, but again it still is based on the same principles. It has angles and more complex forms-but the angles are all in sensible places - unlike today's angular cartoons that have arbitrary and inconsistent designs that don't work well for animation. -think MULAN.
That's why the best cartoons to study are the cartoons from the early to mid forties.
They are all very rounded and do not have really distracting angular styles. Study Jones, Clampett, Avery, Disney, Tom and Jerry.
Avoid Freleng and other 40s styles. They are all trying to imitate what the stars were doing but the drawings and animation are much sloppier in the rest of the cartoons being done at the time.
(By "avoid" them I mean, avoid copying them if you are trying to learn to draw good principles. Watch them, because they are all fun, but study from the best!)
Beware of 50s cartoons!
I'm not saying I don't like 50s cartoons-I do, but in order to do those styles well, you need to understand how they came to be.
If you start by drawing angular characters before you understand your principles, you will put the angles all in the wrong places and not have any control over your designs and animation-like most modern cartoons.
Principles are the most important thing!
One conservative, the other wild and crazy?
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/04/2-types-of-cartoonists-origin-of.html
These two types worked together all through the 30s and came up with a blended style-the 40s style of pears and spheres and sausages style which is my favorite type of animation.
If you are a young cartoonist (or a geezer who wants to improve his skills) who wants to learn the best way to draw and animate, you should study this approach in its most generic form.
GENERIC 40S CARTOONS
When is "generic" good?
When it is highly skilled as in these Tom and Jerry model sheets below.
If you are trying to teach yourself the principles of good cartoon drawing for example, it's best to study bland cartoons that don't have individual style. Strong style will distract your attention away from the underlying principles that are more important.
Disney helped popularize a style in the late 30s that most other studios adopted-the pear shaped, squash and stretch style.
It's not really a "style" though.
It's a drawing method that makes animation fluid and sensible.
It's a collection of principles that everyone in animation used in the 1940s.
It developed out of the rubber-hose style but added some techniques to help smooth out the animation and give it weight.
3-dimensional but cartoony construction:
The characters are rounded and turn in space like real objects.
But unlike real anatomy, the characters are built out of simple shapes-mostly pear-shaped bodies and round or oval heads with sausages for limbs.
In a strange way, they are real because they are 3-dimensional, but they are also cartoony, because they are made up of forms that aren't anatomical.
All the details of the characters wrap around the major forms that the characters are built from.
The eyes obey the perspective and direction of the position of the head, etc. They don't exist on their own planes.
Squash and Stretch:
These 40s characters bend and stretch and squash like soft rubber.
Line of Action:
The poses are usually strong and simple and all the details of the characters flow along the line of action.
Clear Silhouettes:
The poses usually have strong silhouettes-which helps them read, especially when the actions can be so fast.
Organic Forms:
Unlike rubber-hose cartoons which have very simple curves that have the bends right in the middle of the curve, these 40s style characters have more complex flowing curves which makes them feel more organic like skin and guts-although no bones.
Here's a frame from Chuck Jones' Barbary Coast Bunny, one of my favorite cartoons. The design and style is a more modern 50s approach, yet it still retains all the principles of 40s style cartoons. This type of cartoon is not good for beginning cartoonists and animators to study from, because the shapes are more specific, and they have angles and more complex design elements.
This is much harder to study and grasp than a Tom and Jerry or earlier Disney or Warner Bros. cartoon. It's more interesting graphically for sure, but the more complex design elements will distract you from learning the principles underneath.
Here are some frames from Bob Clampett's Gruesome Twosome. This is a scene by Rod Scribner. It's much more exaggerated than a Tom and Jerry cartoon and has slightly more complex design elements in it.
It's still based on all the same principles though, so once you understand the principles you will be able to then start exploring your own style and variations of designs.
I always recommend to animation students to draw Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig and Tom and Jerry when learning.
Why?
They are fairly simple and very rounded.
When you are animating you have to turn out a lot of drawings.
The more complicated the drawing, the longer it will take you to make the animation work.
NEVER use your own character designs when you are learning to animate.
It will slow your progress.
Use characters that were designed by top Hollywood professionals that already work in 3 dimensions and are simple. You will progress much faster that way.
This frame is from Chuck Jones' Elmers' Candid Camera. Jones hasn't developed his strong personal style yet and is just trying to make the characters look solid and move well. This cartoon is a great one to study for rounded smoothly moving characters.
That's why the best cartoons to study are the cartoons from the early to mid forties.
They are all very rounded and do not have really distracting angular styles. Study Jones, Clampett, Avery, Disney, Tom and Jerry.
Avoid Freleng and other 40s styles. They are all trying to imitate what the stars were doing but the drawings and animation are much sloppier in the rest of the cartoons being done at the time.
(By "avoid" them I mean, avoid copying them if you are trying to learn to draw good principles. Watch them, because they are all fun, but study from the best!)
Beware of 50s cartoons!
I'm not saying I don't like 50s cartoons-I do, but in order to do those styles well, you need to understand how they came to be.
If you start by drawing angular characters before you understand your principles, you will put the angles all in the wrong places and not have any control over your designs and animation-like most modern cartoons.
Principles are the most important thing!
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Constructing Bugs Bunny
This Bugs Bunny model sheet uses all the classic principles of good drawings together and is appealing too.
Bugs looks simple but is really pretty tricky.
Do you ever wonder why the modern versions of Bugs don't look like the real Bugs from the classic cartoons?
Not only does he have mushy construction now, but there are some subtleties in his face that are just really hard to draw. Not even all the original animators could catch them.
We won't start with the subtleties today. Let's just look at the broad forms, two ways.
Same basic construction, less a couple subtle nuances
1) Generic on model 40s Bugs
I thought at first these scenes were by Bob McKimson, but after looking closely, I' don't think so. It's almost on model, but the features seem to be just slightly out of place. Maybe it's Virgil Ross?
Greg Duffel, help me out here!
Anyway, they're still very good, very conservative and conservative on purpose. Clampett contrasted everything in context to help tell his stories better. Conservative against stylish and wild or specific.
Here's McKimson for sure:
Note how almost perfectly solid his construction is.
Clampett cast his animators according to their natural strengths and personalities. He wanted this scene to be Bugs in control and confident -
the Bugs the audience was used to, so that when Bugs started to lose to the turtle, he could show you what would happen to a cool confident character when he's no longer in control. Someone used to winning would obviously lose control in a big way, so those scenes he gave to the funnier animators like Scribner.
Clampett told me he hated formula and every time he and his cohorts would discover a formula that worked, everyone would want to just make the same cartoon over and over again and not screw with the formula. This would make Bob want to make fun of the formula in rebellion, which he did in this and other cartoons.
But to make it work, he couldn't just have Bugs be wild and out of control all through the cartoon. He had to set it up so that the audience would see Bugs as they knew him, and then take them on a wild ride out of the formula.
2) Exaggerated fun Scribner 40s Bugs
This Scribner drawing uses the exact same construction and cartoon drawing principles as the other scene, but it has way more contrasts in the shapes. And more imagination in the shapes and expressions and poses.
Here's a flatter, less contrasted design from another cartoon:
Everything is even proportions.
Scribner's Bugs in this scene is actually even more solid than the "on-model" Bugs. Scribner was a wizard! he could draw all the classic principles better than any other animator at Warner's, but he was also the most creative animator there. Maybe he was from space or something.
Here's Kali's first tries at the conservative on-model Bugs and my translations of the construction.
Bugs' head in the left drawing is veering off to the upper right and his cheek doesn't seem quite attached to his head, so I roughed in Bugs' basic construction next to it.
Here I tried breaking down the drawing. I need to tilt the head back more to make it closer to the pose in the frame grab. But note how all the details flow along the the larger forms.
Toes are same direction as feet. Fingers fit in direction of hands. Eyes wrap around head, etc.
Now here's a Scribner frame:Look how solid even the ears are. Everything is solid and complex. And sensible. The smaller forms ride along the bigger forms. They obey the same perspective and physics.
Different directors experimented with Bugs' proportions and details, but used the same principles as the 40s Clampett Bugs.
Compare to this modern Bugs.
You can tell the artist is being real careful, but even so, a lot of the lines and forms are just floating and don't follow the larger forms they are riding. Like the wrinkle lines above his nose.
There are perfectly straight lines and parallel lines in the drawing too, which instantly kill the volumes.
This one too is much flatter than the original Bugs:
Want to become a better cartoonist? Learn these classic methods and watch your control and results dramatically improve. Try drawing the other frame grabs.
Want more Scribner stories? Wanna know how he upped his style when he went from Avery to Clampett? He actually asked permission from Bob to let him be more creative!
Do you ever wonder why the modern versions of Bugs don't look like the real Bugs from the classic cartoons?
We won't start with the subtleties today. Let's just look at the broad forms, two ways.
1) Generic on model 40s Bugs
I thought at first these scenes were by Bob McKimson, but after looking closely, I' don't think so. It's almost on model, but the features seem to be just slightly out of place. Maybe it's Virgil Ross?
Greg Duffel, help me out here!
Anyway, they're still very good, very conservative and conservative on purpose. Clampett contrasted everything in context to help tell his stories better. Conservative against stylish and wild or specific.
Here's McKimson for sure:
Clampett cast his animators according to their natural strengths and personalities. He wanted this scene to be Bugs in control and confident -
Clampett told me he hated formula and every time he and his cohorts would discover a formula that worked, everyone would want to just make the same cartoon over and over again and not screw with the formula. This would make Bob want to make fun of the formula in rebellion, which he did in this and other cartoons.
But to make it work, he couldn't just have Bugs be wild and out of control all through the cartoon. He had to set it up so that the audience would see Bugs as they knew him, and then take them on a wild ride out of the formula.
2) Exaggerated fun Scribner 40s Bugs
This Scribner drawing uses the exact same construction and cartoon drawing principles as the other scene, but it has way more contrasts in the shapes. And more imagination in the shapes and expressions and poses.
Scribner's Bugs in this scene is actually even more solid than the "on-model" Bugs. Scribner was a wizard! he could draw all the classic principles better than any other animator at Warner's, but he was also the most creative animator there. Maybe he was from space or something.
Here's Kali's first tries at the conservative on-model Bugs and my translations of the construction.
Here I tried breaking down the drawing. I need to tilt the head back more to make it closer to the pose in the frame grab. But note how all the details flow along the the larger forms.
Toes are same direction as feet. Fingers fit in direction of hands. Eyes wrap around head, etc.
Now here's a Scribner frame:
Different directors experimented with Bugs' proportions and details, but used the same principles as the 40s Clampett Bugs.
Compare to this modern Bugs.
There are perfectly straight lines and parallel lines in the drawing too, which instantly kill the volumes.
This one too is much flatter than the original Bugs:
Want to become a better cartoonist? Learn these classic methods and watch your control and results dramatically improve. Try drawing the other frame grabs.
Want more Scribner stories? Wanna know how he upped his style when he went from Avery to Clampett? He actually asked permission from Bob to let him be more creative!
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Roger Ramjet - "Woodsman" - clip 2 acting-reacting poses
CLICK HERE TO WATCH ROGER RAMJET CLIP!
Here's a great example of funny opposing poses from Roger Ramjet:
Here's what I mean by opposing poses:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/11/composition-7-compose-your-poses.html
The animator added a lot to the already funny dialogue track by drawing funny poses of the characters.
The poses aren't funny arbitrarily either. They are in context of the scene.
Roger Ramjet proves that having a severely low budget doesn't mean you have to have boring unfunny drawings. It just means you can't afford inbetweens. Many producers today believe that whoever can afford the most inbetweens has the best cartoon. So they'll have a lot of boring bland drawings moving smoothly into the next boring bland drawings. When I watch a cartoon, or even an animated feature, instead of marveling at how smooth some animation is, I ask whether the actual expressions and poses are actually original or entertaining. (I actually don't ask anything...I just twitch around in my seat when I see the same old expressions and unnatural "animation gestures" for the thousandth time)
If the acting is entertaining and smooth as in an old Warner's cartoon, then that's the best of both worlds! But we can't always afford that. I'd settle at least for some funny expressive drawings in TV cartoons. That would be a start!
Smoothness costs money. Talent is rarer but cheaper if you allow the talent to do what they are capable of.
If you had to choose between smooth motion of stiff drawings
and funny drawings with character, which would you choose? I'm sure some will choose fully animated in any case, right?
I love animation, but I want drawings that would be worth the trouble of moving them.
Here's a great example of funny opposing poses from Roger Ramjet:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/11/composition-7-compose-your-poses.html
If the acting is entertaining and smooth as in an old Warner's cartoon, then that's the best of both worlds! But we can't always afford that. I'd settle at least for some funny expressive drawings in TV cartoons. That would be a start!
Smoothness costs money. Talent is rarer but cheaper if you allow the talent to do what they are capable of.
If you had to choose between smooth motion of stiff drawings
I love animation, but I want drawings that would be worth the trouble of moving them.
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