I did a bit of sketching with charcoal for a drawing class in University. One of the projects I did involved drawing something, erasing it and redrawing the same thing after some action had happened.

Because charcoal leaves marks behind after it’s erased, the original action could be seen behind the new drawing. I repeated these steps about 5 or 6 times. To the left is my artwork (click to view bigger).

It was a lot of work for, what I consider to be, not a great payoff. I like to think that the work has some good conceptual value, even if it’s not that interesting to look at.

The following is a truly amazing wall animation that works on the same principle. (It would have been smart of me to document each step of the process in photographs too).

Realizing how much work went into the poster sized effort I created in University, I’m blown away by the amount of time and effort that it must have taken to create this video. Not only is each individual frame beautifully crafted but the animation is also wonderful. Please enjoy, Fantoche:

Hit play or watch at YouTube.

Check out the future of digital drawing in this video of an M.I.T. researcher showing off some of the features in their new digital drawing board.

Click play or view here.

Animation Lesson 4—Two Legged Full Bodied Characters has to be the most difficult lesson so far. I created what I thought was a pretty good rabbit, but upon comparison there were a lot of inconsistencies between mine and the original.

I redrew the whole thing and then made new comparisons. Not much better so it’s rinse and repeat, and again and again and again.

What I find hard about my correction method, (perhaps some of the other students or even John K (the instructor) have some advice for me) is that when I start to look for inconsistencies, I begin to draw without using “construction” (ie. turning basic shapes into more detailed shapes) but in more of a straight ahead method (ie. Just moving lines to look more like the finished product). Am I tackling the problem correctly, or should I also go back to construction method again when making corrections?

Anyway through trial and error I’ve got something that almost matches up but of course it certainly won’t win any awards:

I don’t even want to show you the duck, but at least I can say this was only the first attempt:

And here is the latest version of the duck:

It took me quite a few attempts but even though it’s not perfect I’m ready to move on to the next lesson because I don’t want to fall behind. I started this one completely from scratch and I find it interesting how I kept making the same mistakes. I’ve pretty much cleaned up a lot of what was wrong before, but it’s amazing how the small differences continue to show up so dramatically in the animated overlay.

In lesson three, John asks us to overlay our drawings on top of Preston Blair’s and identify differences. Here are mine:

Any other inconsistancies that I missed?

Here are some different angles of the bear from the first page of Preston Blair’s book. I did this set this morning and I’m going to start lesson three this afternoon.

Here are some more drawings in an attempt to improve my cartooning ability. Compare these with the lesson page.

What I find so rewarding about these particular drawings, is that instead of looking at an original image in any given pose and replicating it (something I feel fairly confident at doing), here I am taking an original pose and changing it into other poses—it creates a stronger feeling of ownership even though they aren’t my characters.

I’ve been having a great old time this afternoon drawing my heart out and listening to Clay Kaytis’s Animation Podcast.

Here is my page of drawings from John Kricfalusi’s lesson 2 - Squash and Stretch:

John Kricfalusi writes:

You can go to animation school, spend a $100,000 and not learn a damn thing about the basics of good animation drawing-OR you can buy a Preston Blair book for $8 and learn it all in a couple months. You pick.

Just about every cartoon being made today is based on the principles and style of cartoons made in Hollywood in the 1940s—Anime, Cartoon Network flat stuff—even the Simpsons. The only difference is, that some of the principles that make the classic stuff look so good have been lost. The new cartoons are all a degeneration of what cartoons once were—a superficial copy of them—even though many off the artists drawing today don’t even know they are copying—but copying wrong—styles and trends and principles of what developed from the animated cartoons of the Golden Age.

John feels that one of the best ways to learn is by studying master animator Preston Blair’s book, “Animation”.

I’m going to not only tell you about the Preston Blair Book—but I’m gonna guide you through it, fundamental concept by fundamental concept.

I decided to take a whirl at the first lesson, by drawing the cartoon characters from the book. Here are my first drawings:

If you’re up to it, you can give the first lesson a try too. It’s easy when you follow the instructions.

I got a parking ticket today; how irritating. I discovered it when leaving from the figure drawing studio.

Anyway, here are my figure drawings. Please leave a comment if you like them.

My new favorite site at which I like to hang. It’s a collaborative flash site that allows users to paint with their mouse’s in a shared space. Click on expand chat to see the artwork.

Update (August 1st, 2005): It appears the site is down.

Update: It’s back.