bosko animation

This is an animation from the exercise on the john k blog. I am happy to say that I was quite comfortable with the character's construction, months of drawing porky are paying off. I found that i knew where all parts of the character were at all times.

Having said that, there are still kinks in need of ironing out. The head does a weird wobbly thing that is the result of bad inbetweening and my line work needs to be more deliberate so my drawings don't look so messy.

back to the drawing board.

daffy and composition test

trying out jerry

Copying Jerry

John K lesson 9a

According to John K, tom and jerry are ideal for copying as they are pretty much as generic as you can get as far as design goes. I spent a bit more time than usual trying to get proportion right although I let the last two go a bit. in the full body sketches, i was concentrating a lot on perspective and i think the drawings show a bit more depth.

comic book construction

flash sites

Just got back from India and nepal so i have been quiet over last few weeks. keen to get back into the learning. thought i would have a browse at some flash sites and see what info i could get.

cold hard flash

computer arts

this is a site that centres around toon boom animate

calico monkey

Head Construction

While doing these drawings I am really trying to picture the squash and stretch occurring especially around the eyes and cheeks like a rubber band being pulled at either end. Also I want to stay true to the underlying structure particularly the cranium and having the rubbery features wrap around this.

I am still having trouble with proportion of say a jaw to the head. I need to find an effective way to counter this. At the moment, I blur my eyes and try and picture the two shapes as a single object, draw a straight line from eyes and see how far above below nose sits and measure length of jaw/ nose/ ears in relation to head.

I still need to work on the way that the eyes stretch from bridge of nose to high on head. On my drawings the eyes sit a bit low and flat. I think the pupils need to point to the thing they’re looking at and bulge slightly.

don't know why this is underlined but anyway... i got bored of just copying and decided to do some of my own characters. I am finding consistency in characters easier to achieve as well as how the eyes work also light has been shed on how the neck fits on the head and body.
Hillbunny.....

Duck is starting to look better. I keep coming across the same problem of having the eyes too flat on head. they need to be pulled down and out.


I finally worked out how to put an animated gif in Blogger. The wolf's head is too small on all drawings and same problem with eyes too flat

John K curriculum

After the life altering experience of discovering the john k blog, i have decided to follow the step by step lessons provided in hope of improving my animation skills. That was three weeks ago. Here is a brief summary of my work:

Week 1:

I guess the main reason this discovery has affected me so much is the importance mr k places on the fundamentals of cartooning and animation which I tended to gloss over. the first being CONSTRUCTION

Its been three weeks and i havent really moved off this one. I started by following the Preston Blair tutorial of getting an egg and draw perspective lines. I went a bit far and decided to mould features using my kneedable eraser:


This is a great way to understand shapes in 3d space and how features wrap around objects.

using proxies

ae link

mapping 2d background on to geometry

this is a maya tutorial

2d game animation techniques

this supplies a method for game animation at a very low cost:
Low-cost 2D Animation Techniques

Shading and Shadows in After Effects

A link by Jonathon Nix on how to give animated characters tone using photoshop layer masks.
Layer masks/alpha channels and solids

the making of a childrens book illustration

this is a great step by step account of a childrens book illustration from thumbnail sketches to colour in photoshop.

dani draws

art workout site

this is a blog created by heather larkin. it goes over 2d animation techniques using what appears to be alot of flash. could be useful. larkinheather.com

colour information

colour theory tutorial by worqz.

a more abridged version by liquisoft

colour dynamics tutorial by shoomlah

cowgirl paint tutorial

here is a tute for digital painting that uses a technique similar to my own but goes many steps further. cowgirl part 1 part 2 part 3.

it starts with ruff sketch scanned, printed out and redrawn a few times till line is tight without losing the freeness of character.

colours are blocked out in back middle and fore ground layers and worked on it that order.

use of complementary colours is well understood by artist.

photoshop techniques are used such as blur, lasso as well as blending layers.

achieves efficiently what it sets out to do: a scketch that looks like it came out of an animation.

How To Draw Animation: Facial Wrinkles

How To Draw Animation: Facial Wrinkles

By Christopher Hart