Category: Art

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Elephants Dream

elephants dream

Elephant’s Dream is a computer animated movie, released on DVD format and online under a Creative Commons license. That means even if you’re living in the States where peer-to-peer file sharing makes you feel all icky with downloader’s remorse, you can aquire a copy of Elephants Dream and still feel like a good netizen the next day.

‘Elephants Dream’ is the result of almost a year of work, a project initiated and coordinated by the Blender Foundation. Six people from the Blender user/development community were selected to come over to Amsterdam to work together on an animated short movie, utilizing Open Source tools only.

I haven’t watched the completed film yet, but the Elephants Dream teaser is intriguing.

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Von Dutch

I’m not sure if the Von Dutch trucker hats are still considered trendy, but somebody certainly still thinks Von Dutch is pretty cool. Recently on Ebay, Von Dutch’s personal paint and pin striping box sold for $270,000.00!

Von Dutch Paint Box

From the description on Ebay:

Von Dutch – The Personal Paint and Pin Striping Box

Without question, the all original Paint Box we have the pleasure of offering here is one of the most important personal pieces of Von Dutch memorabilia ever offered for sale to date. This is the actual paint box carried by both Von Dutch and most impressively, his father throughout both their legendary careers. The story begins in the 1930s with Walker Howard, father of Kenneth Howard aka Von Dutch, who was one of the most respected sign painters in all of Los Angeles. The young Kenneth Howard was said to accompany his father on many of his jobs, and legend now relates that Howard could paint and letter at a professional level at the age of 10. Though the paint box first belonged to Wally Howard, it was passed on to his son, Kenneth Howard now known as Von Dutch, who continued to use and treasure his paint box and family heirloom for the rest of his painting career and life.

This got me thinking, I should develop a “Milner” font-face and paint into onto a box like this. Who knows, if I become famous then maybe one day my descendants can sell their valuable family heirlooms for oodles of cash too.

Future descendants you have my permission to sell any personal artwork you inherit from me if you can get at least $270,000.00 for it (adjusted for inflation of course).

(via Hypnotik Eye)

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Animation Lesson — Two Legged Full Bodied Characters

Animation Lesson — 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.

Cartoon Rabbit

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 the “construction” technique (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:

Cartoon Rabbit

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

Cartoon Duck

And here is the latest version of the duck:

Cartoon Duck

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Lesson 3 Part 2

animationIt 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.

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Cartoon Drawings

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

Cartoon Moustache man

Cartoon Grandma

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.

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John Kricfalusi’s Online Preston Blair Animation Lessons

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:

Cartoon Dogs

My Sketchbook with images of cartoon animals

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