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Flat Drawing - Techniques for Depth?

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Flat Drawing - Techniques for Depth?

Hello! :)

It takes a lot of imagination and skill to make a flat drawing visually appealing. I'm just not at that point yet - and I'd just like to know the secret trick to attractive, dimensionally thorough construction. What seperates the old, well-drawn Spumco Ren and Stimpy from the latter, Games-animation superflat ones? What seperates Hanna-Barbera from a Disney or Bluth feature?, or Huckleberry Hound from Jungle Emperor Leo?
Constructing depth - just what /is/ it and how's it done? I'm no artist and I've taken no art courses - I don't know how to ask the question properly, I'm afraid. What I don't understand and what I'd like help with is whatever it is that seperates newspaper comics from proper animation-drawing. Flat versus depth. Lines versus construction.
I thought it had something to do with using shapes as guides?, but the flat cartoons are made of shapes too - so what's the trick?, where's the catch?

Thanks bundles!

This is one of those worthwhile threads. Anyone else have some advice for this new upcoming animator. He posted his work. How about some input folks. That's what we used to do here.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

I like your drawings, ecec. If you want to add more depth to your drawings, I'd suggest using more foreshortening. Check out the pictures you posted earlier of the lion, and the one of the horse. Both of those use foreshortening to show depth (the lion's nose, and the horse's hooves and snout).

As things get closer to the camera, they seem to get bigger. I'd suggest exaggerating the size of the end of the bird's beak as he looks straight into the camera, since that part of him would be rather close to the camera.

But don't worry about it too much. If you can imagine the basic mass inside, then drawing the outside with depth won't be too hard.

Hang in there!
Pooryorik

I'm just trying to figure out how to draw, I guess. :P I'd never done any real drawing at any point in my life until about five months ago I decided that I love cartoons and want to animate (if not professionally then just for my own projects)?, I really have no clue what I'm doing and the local community college's drawing course was rubbish and didn't help a bit. I really don't know how to ask the question properly - I'd no idea, before you told me, if cartoon characters were always pieced-together shape-by-shape for every frame. My problem I guess - and I suppose the answer I'll get for is 'practice', and that's fair enough I suppose - is that I can't seem to draw something that looks anything like itself.

I made these about two months ago, they're just keyframes for a second-long practice-animation of a mean bird whipping his head around as he speaks or crows or whatever, and as you can see the big problem - apart from the fact that none of the frames are very interesting, the expressions really don't make sense or flow, they're not exciting - is that it looks like four completely different pictures. In trying to make them, I just tried to draw "something" that looks like a conceived "something", four times - I didn't have a system, and this is what I got. And I don't really know how to progress beyond that point. I've got Animator's Survival Kit and The Animator's Workbook, and if they touch on this kind of thing then I completely missed it. I guess it's more an issue of learning to draw - which any animator started doing probably about ten years earlier in their life than I am - than of animating, so no blaming the books, though.

anyhow

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/1.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/2.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/3.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/4.jpg

Okay, there's a couple of key things here that you raise.

Being a drawing newcomer you have some advantages and disadvantages.
The former being that you are asking questions, the latter being that you don't know what questions to ask.

You are on the right track in the first place.

The answers are there--waiting for you........the key is to ask a better question. The simpler and more fundemental the question is the easier is tends to be answered.
What shapes do I need to look for in the structure? Where are those shapes?
How is the professional work I look at using those kinds of shapes--and how am I using the shapes? Is it something with lines--if so, what?
Narroe it down to the core specifics and build from there.
The existing product stands as the teacher for you in a lot of this. Look at it with new eyes.

Don't get lost in the bullshit that some drawing instruction supplies.
The whole rhetoric about drawing basic shapes over and over again until you master them is unrealistic simply because its not sexy. No-one wants to draw cubes, cones and spheres all the time, simply because its not fun.
Recognizing those forms though IS valuable, and being able to see hidden forms in a structure is a learned skill and a asset.
Being able to cross the abstract bridge from putting mere lines on a page to constructing forms that YOU understand the structure of is the first key step.

The other thing to pulling off a effective drawing is to consider that some drawings just don't work--to wit, some portrayals of characters of objects are just too difficult to pull off using just lines.
Looking straight down at the top of Mickey Mouse's head is a good example--its never been done right because it just doesn't work. There's not enough information in the shapes to "read" what the object drawn is.
Play to the strengths of the design you have in hand.
This follows through to animation. Some characters will be INCLINED ( but not limited) to moving in certain ways because their design holds best only in certain poses.
The buzzard character doesn't look effective looking down on it, or face-on, but looks great in the 3/4 angle. That's a consideration as well.

You are training your eyes, brain and hands all at the same time--so frustration is bound to happen. Frustration is good though, as its a sign the brain is searching for an answer.

An answer to just what questions to need to ask to get answers for in the first place!

Good luck.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

my twopence

depth and perspective is, as you know, dependent on style.
what is easily forgotten is how can you effect this.

depth is easy. just place foreground, middle ground and background
elements. if they are easily recognizable elements (in terms of scale)
like trees, fence, car, then good.

moreover, if they overlap in your composition, the more effective.
there are also other techniques to enhance depth: blurring, loss of
detail, hazing or dimming, loss of saturation, etc.

the first thing to remember about perspective is it's a function of
the camera lens-- whether a wide or telephoto lens was used.

if you're familiar with photography, you know the peculiarities of
these two. Long (tele) lens kill perspective because they
deemphasize depth. Near and far objects of the same size remain
the same size, with little or no blurring. It's like looking at an ortho-
graphic drawing-- a plan, a diagram. Or a usual comic strip.

Wide lens exaggerate perspective. Near and far objects of the same
size now vary in scale. Trees even look smaller than people.

Pespective in drawing only works because you chose a wide lens.
So the perspective of the figure should match the perspective of the
background. Otherwise it won't feel right.

A slight decrease in size of the other eye or hand effectively conveys
perspective. The greater the exaggeration, the wider the lens.

How do you emphasize perspective in drawing?

Well you answered it already. Design it in such a way that elements
(eyes, nose) don't just look pasted but has a place in some tangible
sphere or cube. The more elements are stacked in front of each other
(eyes behind brows behind cheeks behind snout behind nose) the more
volume you can play around with.

One great technique is overlapping lines. These are the open-ended
lines that populate the insides of a character and thus depict which region
is in front which is at the back-- even if both regions reside on the same
plane.

A simple addition of overlapping lines can easily throw an element
to or away from the camera and thus impart volume and perspective to
an otherwise flat drawing.

Most characters are made up of spheres (one for head, two for cheeks,
one for nose, one for chin, etc) and they get embedded into one another,
so you can use overlapping lines (see cheek lines on piggy and king john)

everything else depends on the artist's experience, imagination and the
rich heritage of those who have drawn before him.

Attachment 

Don't worry.  All shall be well.

Hello! :)

I thought it had something to do with using shapes as guides?,

I think ecec is talking here about the technique of breaking down a drawing into spheres, cylinders and cubes which is what I think many artists do naturally. I'm a poor to middling draftsman, but this is the only way I can achieve any depth in my drawings.

Check out Preston Blairs "Cartoon Animation" series (you can get them all in one book). He goes through the 'construction" process of using simple 3d objects to build out your character, then add details once the mass is in place.

Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com

Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight

I guess it's more an issue of learning to draw - which any animator started doing probably about ten years earlier in their life than I am

It's never too late to start, so don't worry about when other people started. Desire and attitude play a huge part in learing how to draw (along with practice), so you've got the tools you need. And looking at what you posted, you've already got some command of the pencil, so go easy on yourself...

Now, on to more "brass tacks" advice:

Try to avoid dead-on "facing the camera" shots. They're almost never necessary, tend to look flat, and don't read as strongly as a pose that's even a few degrees to one side or the other. You said this exercise was basically a head turn. You can avoid dead-on drawings in nearly every instance like this; just cheat the pose to one side or the other.

If you must have a dead-on drawing, tilt the head down a bit so we're not looking directly at the character's nose/beak/whatever. It gives the drawing some dimension and makes the action more interesting. I think Tony White covers this in the "Workbook".

Check out Preston Blairs "Cartoon Animation" series (you can get them all in one book). He goes through the 'construction" process of using simple 3d objects to build out your character, then add details once the mass is in place.

hmm... cool- sounds like Burne Hogarth for animation...

I am not sure if you are mixing apples with oranges, when you compare newspaper comics to animation. They are both proper drawing mediums, but they serve two very different purposes. In most comics they are telling a story in a limited space (printing limitations, limit the artist to number of colors and or 1/2 tones), so the addition of props and backgrounds is held to a minimum. Whereas with animation sometimes it is the background or additional props that make the animation, more animated.

And don't confuse style with depth, many productions are made purposely to look flat, it's their style. And one style isn't necessarily any better than another. It's like comparing a Matisse to a Rembrandt.

Maybe give us some examples in the form of a couple comparision pictures of things you like or want to avoid.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Depth and Perspective.

Hey Erec,

well, it seems that you've already gotten alot of good feedback...this is a good forum for that. Kukut had some great tips as well..sounds like the Kut knows his or her shiznit.

Yeah, I'll probably only be repeating a few things, but seeing is how many different approaches there are to the same question, maybe you can pick something out of it.

A good place to look might be in other people's work. If you're looking at a character illustration or drawing of scenery that has a good feeling of depth and perspective, don't let it go. Get into it and analyze what it is that's giving you that impression.

The same rule of perspective and depth applies to a character, as it does to a scene. The only difference is that in a character, you're separating each limb (ie, head, hips, arms, legs..etc...), whereas in a scene, you're taking each element (ie..table, chairs, trees, bridges, woman wearing nothing but high heels, sun baithing nude by the riverside....ahem..sorry...) and you're fitting them into the main point of perspective of the scene itself. You're placing elements here and there, but making sure that they all respect the same vanishing point.).
http://in.geocities.com/iforanidzine/visualbalance/bal/perspective.gif
check out this link with an example of "vanishing point".

In a character, that same vanishing point applies to every part of the body. If each part of the body is angled differently, they each have a different vanishing point...but don't think too much about that if it's too heavy...keep that simple vanishing point in mind for now. Do a google search for "perspective tutorial" and you'll get lots of hits, just browse around to see how that's used in different cases...you'll understand.

Now, there are a few other simple rules that you can follow to make a character or scene dynamic and interesting and give a nice fun illusion of depth.

1- size difference:

I don't care what any woman says, it's a fact that size matters...at least in this case.
So how do film makers make you "feel" that something is ENORMOUS. Well, the only way that you can make something seem huge, is to put something next to it that's really small, that everyone recognizes. It's gotta be something that's universally understood as being big itself. For example...

If you've ever seen Spielbergs "War of the Worlds", how did the artists convey that the alien tripods were HUGE. Well, your first introduction of them was where they came out of the ground...and they came out of the ground next to a big church. Everyone knows that churches are already really tall, so in your head, if that alien tripod is lurching 4 times as high as that church, then DAMN! That's one big-ass tripod alien right? Exactly. Now, you wanna push that a bit further..then put the teeney-weeney little humans, and scatter them around the same scene...now you REALLY feel how big those aliens are, cause you, being a human, will compare your own size to the church, which is one fourth the size of the alien tripod. Can any one say "AMSCRAY?!"
(damn, just spilt half my coffee on my face...well done.)
Ahem...so yah.
Remember, you're dealing with a created image..so people won't "guess" that your character is huge, unless they have evidence of it..otherwise, they'll naturally assume your character or element in your scene is average size. That's how the human mind works. If you've ever seen iron giant, you'll notice that you never saw the giant standing alone. You saw the giant next to a forest of trees, or by a mountainside, or in a junkyard...there was always a size comparison.

So let's track back...perspective. Furthermore..."horizon line". that vanishing point always meets the horizon. Now that horizon line depends on the height of the person, animal or robot's eye level. The taller the eyes of the camera, the higher the view point will be, and hence, the LOWER the horizon will be. If you're way up in a plane, the horizon will be WAY DOWN THERE... If you're a little mouse...then everything will be WAY UP THERE. That mouses eye level will be way down close to the ground..and everything that that mouse sees will be from down there...You wanna see that use of perspective put to good use, then go rent "American Tale"..most of scenery is drawn from the perspective of a mouse...good shiznit let me tell you.

And of course, if you want to feel how small everything is from the eyes of a mouse, then you have to have that same old rule of "size comparizon" to convey that illusion. Make that mouse's dinner table a match box, and people will get the point. Make his home a watering can, and people will get the point. If you wanna stretch the point, then put that watering can next to a shoe, which is next to a garbage can, which is next to a lamp post, which is next to a building, which is next to a naked woman standing on the street corner...darn, excuse my tangent again....and all of a sudden, the andience will really FEEL that tinyness.

Then, there's overlapping. One thing in front of another. Again, this applies to the human form as well as scenery. you want to feel a character reaching towards you to grab your neck, then have the characters body small in the background, and make that hand really BIG in comparison, taking up half the page (or more)...and moreso, make that hand "overlap" the body or face in some way, so you can see that it's in front of the body...(careful not to cover important parts of the body or face that are telling the story...you cover the face, people won't see that the character you're drawing is pissed off or playing with you..you have to keep everything clear so the audience can read the mood and expression.

Same applies to scenery. You look down an old western cowboy street, and way off in the distance is a small saloon, and right up in the top right corner of the screen, taking up that whole quarter of the page, is a barbershop sign...your eye will make the link between the big barbershop right up in your face where you can see the detail in the grain of the wood, and the little saloon way down the street. The mind will compare the two, and your audience will say "HEY...THAT SIGN IS REALLY FRICKING CLOSE TO MY HEAD...WHOOOAAH!".

Easy little tricks, but if you use them, and not be afraid to really exxagerate, you'll be able to push that illusion of size, depth and perspective. The audience will get your message...your drawing won't feel and look weak. You want something powerful and believeable....you want people to go WOW right? It's not hard, just don't forget the key elements.

Now, hopefully this message isn't too big to send or I'll have to split it up in two, and that's a big pain in the arse.

Here we go..

Adam

First look at this drawing of the iron giant...
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.writebetweenthelines.com/ws_home/theory/iron_giant_original.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.writebetweenthelines.com/ws_home/theory/iron_giant_dramatica_story_analysis.htm&h=300&w=224&sz=17&tbnid=RnzN7i3Z68NOiM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=82&hl=en&start=6&prev=/images%3Fq%3Diron%2Bgiant%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

Can't really feel how big he is can you....

Now check out this drawing...

http://www.wrestling1.com/ssheaven/i0028.jpg

Now check out this one...
Notice how the camera is angled from the perspective of a child...it's lower than the adults standing around isn't it. And see that he's standing next to a building...that's very important too. Without that building there, you wouldn't know how big he was.

That one man standing right between the giant's legs is important too...he's the closest to the giant...and the fact that he's a little separated from the rest of the crowd is no mistake...the artists wanted you to notice him..

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.filmnight.org/images/irongiant2sm.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.filmnight.org/irongiant.htm&h=366&w=252&sz=42&tbnid=KDwXfaA2tRcpYM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=81&hl=en&start=204&prev=/images%3Fq%3Diron%2Bgiant%26start%3D200%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

Here's the poster for iron giant.

The most important elements in this scene for conveying size are the lamp power lines next to him. We know how tall power lines are, so we can feel how small that mob of military cars and trucks around the giants feet are. They exxagerated a little and put the moon behind the giant..but made sure that the giants head was above the line of the moon. DAMN..that's one big ass giant.

Now let's go the other way...

Here's "An American Tail"...the story of a mouse. The poster.

http://www.postersnthings.com/posters/american_tail.jpg

What's important here? He's standing next to two the boots of people walking. We know how big boots are, and since they're in a walking pose, we know we'll feel the human presence, so we'll think in terms of human proportions...BIG.
The perspective if from a mouse's height. They didn't take the perspective of a human, looking down..the camera is straight on, from the eyes of another mouse. (Humor the thought that the artists for this film had to do alot of their drawing lying on their stomach, with their chin on the floor...had to shower alot after work...animation's a dirty job).
As like the moon was below the iron giant's head line, in this case, they threw the statue of liberty in the background of the scene...not only to tell the audience that they're in New York, but to give the viewer a giant, well-known icon that hovers well above the head of Feivel, the mouse.
They have the suitcases of the humans in the scene as well, not only to have lines that are above the mouse's head, but to serve as a size comparizon to Feivel's suitcase...now, when you look at Fievel's suitcase, you go "AWWWW...LOOK AT HIS LITTLE SUITCASE!....INNY CYOOT!?!"

So there, amuse toe!.

Adam

And one last thing. You wanted to ask the right questions and not come across as ignorant...well, I've rarely heard a non-trained artist ask artistic questions better than you did. You got right to the point and your questions are very easy to respond to.

You wanted to know about the comparison between the old and the new style of animation...great question. Comparing Hanna-Barbera and spumco is brilliant...these are facts that have gone down in the animation history books.

It started before HB (Hanna Barbera), with animated shorts..like the skeleton dance and steam boat willie....and finally, the first full length animated film..."snow white". These were huge projects, that required a huge team of artists and animators. The backgrounds were all done using watercolor paints, which you could imagine was a HUGE job, and very expensive.

The budget for producing a film like Snow White was enormous. After the World War I, the world went into a severe financial depression, and colecting the funds to produce a film like Snow White was near impossible. The Animation industry was in a bad state, and the risk of closing shop entirely wasn't an impossibility.

This is where HB came in..The Flintstones was the first of all time "Low Budget" animated show. They were the first to put such modestly used techniques like "looping" (which didn't originate there, but wasn't used extremely), was now made a staple technique for saving money. They would draw a 4 or 5 frame animation of the body moving on one level, then the a 3 or 4 frame animation of the head moving, and a 5 or 6 frame animation of the feet running...put them all together and you have Fred running like a twit...you run those into an animation loop, and you have an entire animation that can be reused and reused in every episode. The same applied to talking, to reacting, to whatever animation they could cut and paste together to tell a story.
The same applied to backgrounds...they put good use to the rotating background...a seamless background that could be looped over and over...hence, you weren't crazy when you saw that same tree pass bye the screen 6 times in one run.

This was finally defined "Low budget animation". The opposite of "low budget animation" is what you know as "Classical Animation". A disney film like Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, where every frame is a new drawing, a different "unrepeated" drawing from a different angle..a new background for every camera angle..."HIGH BUDGET ANIMATION"...that's what is KNOWN as Classical animation.
TV shows nowadays are usually a combination of both. The use of loops and rotating backgrounds are still being used regularly to cut costs, but not obsessively...to give a little variety. We're trying to be economical, but not anal about it. Budget is always a big concern in producing a full length animated film, or a TV series.

How much content and change in a show depends on budget...the quality of the drawings and animation is up to the artists themselves. John Krickfalusi, the director and creator of Ren and Stimpy (Spumco), is just a very loose and talented artist, who has a sensitivity towards exxageration, charicature, setting and staging. Many artists have tried to emulate his style, like "Cow and Chicken" and others, but only saw the "poo poo caca humor in it, but missed the boat when it came to the essence of charicature and personality (if I can be opinionated for a moment here).

Disney has a huge budget, so they can take more it to send their artists to Kenya to study lions, or france to study french architecture, and use top of the line digital 3D paint techniques to create beautiful mossy vines in Tarzan. Money talks I'm afraid, but money is useless without talent. With Photoshop, Flash or Maya or Softimage or 3DS Max, or Toonboom or all of the above installed on your computer, you can produce some very impressive stunning artwork nowadays, from home...for next to NOTHING...but if you want the world to see it on big screen, then make sure that you keep putting a few handulls of change into your piggy-bank starting NOW. Capich?

Adam

Maybe give us some examples in the form of a couple comparision pictures of things you like or want to avoid.

Boondocks is the most recent crossover I can think of, and I have nothing nice to say about it.

I'd like ecec to give some examples as to what he's talking about.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Are you asking about depth or volume? Those are two different things. This kind of stuff takes a lot of schooling and practice to get a good handle on, and can't really be covered over a few forum posts. I've attached some examples of very basic ways to acheive both depth and form. The first image is flat with no depth. The second one shows by overlapping two objects and making one smaller than the other you can achieve depth. The third is a circle with a straight line through it, flat. The forth image is the same circle and line but this time the line is curved so it give the feeling that the circle is a ball or sphere with volume rather than a flat circle.

Other than that, I'd say you should take some art classes in basic and life drawing to get a better foundation in this.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

I opened my original message with the statement that flat drawings are valid and potentially appealing, too - so while comments to that same effect are welcome additions to the discussion on this topic, I do hope they aren't being considered as directed to me -- I'm well-aware!, thanks!, I just want to better understand this specific concept.

Flat:
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~mtg22/IZimages/Zim_alien.jpg
http://www.evsc.k12.in.us/teachers/elementary/scott/burns/ziggy.gif
http://home.arcor.de/jiminigrillwurst/Jimini%20Grillwurst/Ren%20&%20Stimpy%20-%20Jimini%20Grillwurst%20(01).jpg
http://www.billmumy.com/mumy/galleries/animation/stimpy2.jpg
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/76/1127680758.jpg

Depth:
http://www.absoluteanime.com/jungle_emperor_leo/_lune.jpg
http://radish-spirit.com/cbl/minor03/robinhood07.jpg
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/archives/rsapcb.jpg

Also, sorry I didn't make this clearer - but I'm not actually asking more than one question in my post. Just, due to the fact that I'm unfamiliar with any clearer terminology, I asked the same question as many different ways as I could think of.

Well that just muddles up yor original questions something awful.

Flat drawings can be appealing, but then you have to consider lighting and backgrounds, both of which might require depth.

Either way, or any way you cut it, studying life drawing and art history is the best way to go.

If your drawings have no depth that's exactly what they'll look like. And if they're on backgrounds with no depth...

Hey! :)

It's hard for me to see how relevant your points are to my examples and my questions when, for example, the point of shading is continually brought up, and yet in the Mr Horse picture he's simply not shaded apart from the extra light on the eyes - his face, neck and legs are all the same color, and yet he really stands out because of the construction of his snout and mouth. So I'd like to put the questions I've been asking fully into the realm of 'construction' - maybe that clarification will help focus the discussion.

For example - how in the world would that sheep nurse be drawn? I honestly can't tell from looking. Did the animator, in each frame, draw a circle for her skull?, two for each cheek?, and then one for the snout and one for the nose? What about Mr. Horse - how could they ever build a wide-open mouth like that?
And look at Prince John - look at the way the eyes are sunken, the nose protrudes -- what the heck kind of shape is that crazy nose?, and howabout those lips that split in the middle like that?, what kind of shape turns into /that/?, and then curves like so as it recedes and nears the corners of the lips?
I just simply don't "get" how to construct any kind of depth on a character - it's a fundamental issue, bottom jaws throw me for an utter loop, lips too. Just what the heck to do with them?, how to link them up to the rest? I can watch Clampett and Avery 20 hours a day, trying to understand how they did it, but the furthest I can get is just a flattened copy of it, symbol-like.

I don't know!, if somebody could just take me step-by-step through a drawn frame of animation with a character that's got a lot of depth in their construction, that would be awesome - to show me how they plot things out, how they keep proportions, all that.

yes i know i sound retarded :-o i so am :~)

After looking at your examples, I think you are asking about shading and giving volume to your drawings through it's use. You may find this site helpful:

http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312495/Mechanics/mechanics.htm

Shading involves understanding volume and lighting.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

I'm just trying to figure out how to draw, I guess. :P I'd never done any real drawing at any point in my life until about five months ago I decided that I love cartoons and want to animate (if not professionally then just for my own projects)?, I really have no clue what I'm doing and the local community college's drawing course was rubbish and didn't help a bit. I really don't know how to ask the question properly - I'd no idea, before you told me, if cartoon characters were always pieced-together shape-by-shape for every frame. My problem I guess - and I suppose the answer I'll get for is 'practice', and that's fair enough I suppose - is that I can't seem to draw something that looks anything like itself.

I made these about two months ago, they're just keyframes for a second-long practice-animation of a mean bird whipping his head around as he speaks or crows or whatever, and as you can see the big problem - apart from the fact that none of the frames are very interesting, the expressions really don't make sense or flow, they're not exciting - is that it looks like four completely different pictures. In trying to make them, I just tried to draw "something" that looks like a conceived "something", four times - I didn't have a system, and this is what I got. And I don't really know how to progress beyond that point. I've got Animator's Survival Kit and The Animator's Workbook, and if they touch on this kind of thing then I completely missed it. I guess it's more an issue of learning to draw - which any animator started doing probably about ten years earlier in their life than I am - than of animating, so no blaming the books, though.

anyhow

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/1.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/2.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/3.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/thelastusernamenotalreadytaken/4.jpg

Don't get your shorts in a knot, and you aren't retarded, with the horses mouth, that's just a matter of understanding mass and perspective, it's something you learn with practice or study. Theres foreshortening and exageration going on there that no formula can make easy for you.

I am not one of those that uses geometric shapes to plot out my work. I just do it, but then I've been drawing and conceiving things for a long time. My first stuff wasn't good, and you can't expect to master everything in one week. And some of my new stuff isn't that good, but you just have to keep working at it. Sometimes you have to give up and start from a new viewpoint.

I learned a lot by copying different techniques, and funny thing is I can still pull them up, so it's not wasted effort. When it comes to graphics I can be downright schizophrenia.

The most important thing in the beginning, is learning to see what's important and what isn't. I started out drawing cans and boxes, and one of the hardest things was trying to convey a piece of paper that I had crumpled up.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Ecec, why don't you tell us or show us what it is you so badly want to draw. Maybe we can show you different examples on how to improve it. It sounds like you really want to accomplish something, but you aren't telling us any details.

Set the stage draw a character that you want, and let us help you improve it.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

p.s. thanks for the link you definitively non-grapelike ape you :)

I'm sorry, but I still feel that my point isn't being made.
I'd ask that you each look at the eyes. In the flat drawings, they seem like flat glasses, just laid over the faces. But in the drawings with depth, they seem to have a real 'place' in the 'skull' of the character - they're behind snouts or noses, or on the curve of a sphere.
In the flat drawings, they're just circles on a bigger circle, and the lines of the faces aren't creases in wrapped flesh or pelt - but just simple lines.

I guess - like with everything else so far, in my experience - it's really just going to be a matter of trying to draw it myself until I accidentallysomehow do.

There are a lot of little tricks to get depth. Your examples use a lot of different lighting techniques. I won't go into detail, but it's important to light the foreground different than the background for a shadow box effect. There are also little gimmicks like drawing with thicker lines for the foreground, and soft-focusing the background. A lot of classic cartoons have watercolor paintings for backgrounds, which naturally recede from the hard lines of inking.

Generally, either the foreground is bright and the background is dim or vice versa. There's a neat film noir-era book on photography called Painting With Light by John Alton. I don't know how much it'll help with drawing, but it really got me thinking of ways to get depth.

http://www.fineart.sk/show.php?w=940

-Here's a good example of block form shading from Andrew Loomis. This is more specific to drawing. Of course, for animation, you'll want to simplify this.

I would also recomend Draw Comics With Dick Giordano. He has a very 1950s, Jack Kirby'ish blocky figure drawing style which may or may not be yours. But he really lays down the law in terms of getting bulk and perspective. You can get quite a bag of tricks out of that book alone.

Why don't you check out Larry's site here: http://tooninstitute.awn.com/lessonplan/headconst1.htm
He has a bunch of different tutorials on constructing the full body and head as well as animation tutorials. These might help.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Your stuff shows a lot of potential and skill, I don't know why you are worried about getting the hang of things.

Just keep with it. You just need to learn how to get from one pose to another. The only real suggestion I could give you right now is in the first one, you've curved his beak too much to the left. I know you probably did this to show the beak was closed, but have it drop down more in line with his eyes. Don't worry about showing the bottom beak in this shot, which I have to say is nice overhead perspective.

And try not to think too much. I know that sounds strange, but you already have a really fluid style, if you try to think out every shape and pose, it's going to drive you crazy.

I find acting out the action of my characters and feeling the change in poses helps me figure out where to go with my tweens. And take a look at how the movies change camera focus, sometimes you can cut from an overhead to a direct on or profile. But keep in mind what your character is thinking and I think you'll be fine.



Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.