The assignment was to design an original version of any character from Alice in Wonderland hence the endless rabbits of late. I came up with this guy (John) as the White Rabbit and today I finished modeling him so it seemed only fair to give him his photo opportunity.
After the break are some quick thumb nail sketches which break down various figures into component parts, constructed using simple shapes. The idea is to give some realism to the implied movement in a cartoon or to allow the character to have life in an animation. The use of construction allows you to make the character 3d and to play around with the proportions and characterisation rather than working from observation alone/life (as I am used to, which is a different skill) and to draw realistically but purely from imagination.
So here is before I practiced Here is where I do more research (and because I have always loved the pink panther). Here is how it helps. This last one is the first one I like.
Initially stuck on heads with fairly similar shapes and constructions I needed to work on imagining the whole character. Below is a page of some alternative shapes from Vincent and my efforts at researching a few cartooning legends. Finally I try to apply the cartoon style starting with the 'life' image from which to draw key characteristics.
Went to my first of 10 character animation lessons with an ex Disney animating dude Vincent Woodcock and drew non stop for an intense 2.5 hrs. Learning to draw anthropomorphic animals in 60 seconds was the first lesson, the task was a surprised cat - harder than it sounds trust me! Also what makes a cat and a dog a dog... never questioned it before but its not a simple thing to explain though children get it first time. Worked hard - pics are not brilliant but its the learning of the principles and the thought processes that count. Awesome though, love the character animation world view - everything must be convex, expressive, realistic enough to be believable, imaginative, personal, quick and comic. Yes. Good rules.
This is Sackman, over whom I prevaricated and procrastinated but really it wasn't that bad. This is really just part 2 of the bouncing ball assignment. [insert face] Phew, that took ages. On to the next one! The music is Cesaria Evora singing D'Nhirim (the opening is her Oriundina).
So this is maybe a bit animation-geeky for most people but for me this was really interesting and fun. Spacing, key, in-between and passing drawings and most interesting was learning about slowing in... that is the gravitational effect on the pendulum which gives the impression of weight. These are like A B C. I still have the rest of the alphabet and then grammar and sentence structure to go before I can get creative. Bring it on. I love it.
This is my very first animation (if that is what it is! more like a gif!) it is made from three sketches of a dude on the 9.45 tube towards London Bridge. Hope it amuses if only for a minute...
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