Hello,
I have recently graduation in the field of Media Arts and Animation with a BS, which in truth feels like bs. Been in school for 5 years switch majors from Visual Effects to Animation and feel like I'm still getting nowhere. I have tones of ideas but it feels like my drawing skill are not up there to get me a job within the field of 2D Digital animation or even get noticed. I understand yes it not hot as 3D animation, but I have tried 3D animation and it doesn't sit well with me not personally just health wise. I feel like Illustration and 2D animation is all I can do but I'm having a hard time with that. A lot of the time I can draw out a character or get a good pose or flow and then just can't. I feel like I'm all over the place, I don't know where to really start and need the guidance to get there I guess. I am really frustrated with animation industry in overall. It feels like it's a lot of pressure to do what you enjoy. Animation is something that suppose to bring smiles and life lessons to children and people. It's like I'm more concern about getting a job now within the industry instead of drawing and improving my skill. I'm always feel like I'm running out of time and the industry is moving so fast for me to keep up I'm only 24 and I feel lost. I feel that my school didn't give me enough of what I need to learn and I'm starting from scratch again.
p.s. Here is a link to my website and I would like some feedback on it if you all have the time. Just want help.
Makiemabeverly.com
-Maki
Maki-
I took a look over your work, and I have some comments.
Overall your weakness in the drawings is a lacking in structure. You'll hear that word bandied about a lot, but here's what it means: your drawing doesn't have much of the implied underlying skeletons or structural forms that make up what an object is.
Take a look at how Disney animation manages structure--stuff like Tarzan, or Sleeping Beauty.....any of their earlier pre-CGI stuff.
You characters have a prediclections for blobby anatomy, things like fingers are not fully defined or structures, eyes occasionally don't seem to be housed in a skull, arms and legs seem to have little or poor underlying bone-definition.
Also your overall shapes in things tend to be sloppy........pant cuffs and dress hems just seem to blob around and not have any defined shape or design about them.
You background designs have trees that.........well, they don't look like much of anything. A lot of the detail isn;t clear, and is muddled.
The Five Star Tree Town drawing has all kinds of weaknesses to it.
The gardens and the fencing is far too complicated and rendered too tiny to work.
Old cartooning trick: ALWAYS think reduction. You work has to be able to take a reduction of at least 50% and not bunch up into something that cannot be made out. This is why a lot of cartoon art is done oversized and is shrunk down a bit. It allows a drawing to have structure; actually drawing out shapes that represent plants and objects like planks, but are simplified enough that they can be understood.
Your image there has a problem........how would someone PAINT some of that stuff??
The drawing also needs some line quality to it, something to differentiate shapes and objects from each other and in perspective.
A calssic example of this is the beginner mistake of drawing EVERY brick on a brick wall staged in perspective.
You've done this with the tiling on the roof tops and the rock forms on the cliff walls...not to mention a lot of the plants. Instead use suggestion..........in this case a patch of bricks here and there on your "brick wall" to convey the IDEA that it's a brick wall, without all the sweat and toil of drawing all the bricks.
The cliff side walls can be communciated by drawing some rock structure lines on the closer sections, and less on the further walls. This will convey perspective to the shot.
The other thing here is that you kinda already use this idea........albeit backwards. Your houses have detailed rooftops further away, but not closer up, when it should be the other way around.
This.........is basic drawing stuff, and it's what's been tripping you up in getting work. Get some GOOD examples of characters and background art and study them and compare what they do and what you do.
DO MORE LIFE-DRAWING, and again, look at what the pros do with life drawing and what they apply to their images that you are not applying.
You biggest hurder is that you are no seeing these things, and are not clear on what to look for.
Make a change in perception and you'll likely make a change in what you are drawing, and for the better.
Good Luck.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Thank you so much Ken.
Sigh... I feels good to have someone tell me whats is acturally wrong with my stuff or what i can do better. I just have a lot to do I see. I have tones of books upon anotomey to cartoons and I guess I can't translate it that welll. I'm slowly understanding from some of my work and just letting go and being more observant. I have been seeing the growth with in it. But you are right I need to get into more life drawing classes. I Had about 3 to 4 classes and I guess i really didn't learn much like i wanted to. Overall thank you and I will be a lot better then what I am know down the road.
-Maki
Nice Analysis Ken, I do agree with lot of your analysis I have implemented it my SmartIO project...and Maki keep it up
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