John K Is At It Again, Folks!

Dag nab it all! Just when I was feeling good about feeling bad about my drawings Mr. Kricfalusi has to go and follow-up his post on "influences!"

Read all about it here: Influences Won't Help You Without Skill

And if that's not enough both Shane Glines and Katie Rice have chimed in!

Now I feel bad about feeling good about feeling bad about my cartooning! I'm on a moebius strip of self-loathing! That's good, right?

Gang, I almost feel like deleting this blog and going back to page one again. And I would, too, if I hadn't had so many great comments. So, no! I'll try to persevere and keep polishing this yak dropping that I like to call my "cartooning."

Goose Eggs and John K Speaks

OK, I used the silhouette & sausage drawings from yesterday's session as a guide and produced the drawing on the left. I like it enough to start obsessing on how the clothes are hanging and other such minooshaw. I have quite a ways to go, yet...

One of my daughter's daily activities is to "draw with pencil and paper!" So, while she's sitting on the kitchen table, we'll get out said pencils and paper and have a doodle session. Here's the stuff I drew for her last night:



Nothing to write home about, but, gosh, isn't it fun to draw sometimes?

EDIT: Hey, gang! I just stumbled onto John K's blog this morning and this quote leaped out at me:

"I think its great that there are so many blogs now that feature all kinds of previously obscure animators and I encourage every young cartoonist to go and not only look at the stuff you like, but copy it, analyze it and put it into practice! Be merciless in your self criticism. When you first start to copy this stuff it should be obvious how inferior your copies are. If you don't see that, give up instantly. But if you see that you have a long way to go, then keep going! The more you copy and criticize, the faster you will learn and improve."

I guess I should feel good about feeling bad about my scribbles! HUZZAH!

See you on Monday!

Trace Ballyhoo

I decided to try an old trick here. I traced the L.O.A. and silhouette of the character to get a better feel for the shape and inherent negative spaces. Next, I did a sausage construction of the basic shapes. Then, I tried free-handing a construction based on the previous two steps. I had to abort the mission due to an error in the trajectory, but maybe, just maybe, we've all learned something here today.

So be sure to send twenty-five cents, in coin, no stamps, please, to WHAT I LEARNED TODAY, Box 100, Dept. LOSER, Battlecreek, 17, Michigan. Offer expires April 1, 1965. Void where prohibited by law. Must be 18 years of age, or older, to enter.

How Best To Stuff A Goose?

I'm really trying to get to the core of this goose (duck?) character. It seems like something I should be able to do. I'm not really happy with the results so far. The body shapes are really labored and look very non-dimensional. I also took a swipe at drawing some details, i.e. the hat and bow-tie. Hmmm.

Just to show you the depths of my mania, here's a doodle I did in the corner of my church bulletin during the Children's Message on Sunday.

Maybe prayer is the key? (Or maybe I should just pay attention in church..?)

Duck... Duck... Goose?

Yep, I've been floggin' & bloggin' this here now Preston Blair book since May and I've already worked my way up to page seven! (That's only because I've skipped page six, but I intend to backtrack.)

Here are my first two attempts at drawing that duck... or is it a goose? Well anyway, take a gander at it! We'd best get quacking, eh? Whoops, 'scuze me...

OK, I'm back. I had to go slap myself. Hard.

I thought I did pretty good on the first try. I mean, it's nice and cartoon-y and I did better with the clothes than I thought I would. Then I flipped it against the drawing in the book and saw I was 'way off. On my second attempt I got closer to the example's proportions, but there's still work to be done.

Here are some quick sketches from this morning's breakfast table. No big whoop, but there you go. I'm trying to be methodical and at the same time intuitive. Much in the same way that Certs is a breath mint while also being a candy mint.

Uh, oh... gotta go slap myself some more. Harder.

Enough With The Line Of Action, Already!

God willin' and the creek don't rise, I'll be moving onto another page of this thing we call the Preston Blair book. What can I do? The cats are fomenting mutiny and even good ol' Freddy F. wants my mortal soul! ("Brimstones / Meet the Brimstones / They're a bunch of stone-aged Anti-Christs..." Egads! This stuff writes itself!)

With any luck, I'll have some serious studying and drawing time this weekend. See youse Monday, amigos! (That's Spanish for "friends!")

Look What Kevin Did!

Gosh, I spent all last night running around to PEP BOYS (sick car), the doctor's office (sick daughter) and the drug store (Rx for the sick daughter). Suffice it to say, no drawing was done by yours truly.

But LOOK WHAT KEVIN DID! A super-nifty animated strut cycle for li'l poochy.



Well done, stout fellow!

L.O.A. Musings - Part Two

Here is the top half of page 32 from the Preston Blair book. This is 'way advanced for us right now, but let's take a look, anyway.

1. By using the L.O.A. to lay out the action, Preston was able to conceptualize an abstract motion, i.e. the pitcher spins like a pinwheel.

2. The L.O.A. is not "anchored" to any specific part of the character's anatomy. It runs up his right leg and shoots out his left arm in drawings 1 - 4 on the top row. Then, at drawing #5 the L.O.A. still runs through the right leg, but the top half completely misses the upper torso! In drawings 6 & 7, the L.O.A. now runs from leg-to-leg!

Conclusion: The L.O.A. can be any part of a character's anatomy or no part of a character's anatomy.

Here are some more musings in the drawing, below...



And finally, some cat head drawings, just for fun!

L.O.A. Musings - Part One

Thanks, Bardhol!

Fellow blogger, bardhol, has answered my pleas for help in understanding the LINE OF ACTION concept with THIS post.

Sounds like we're both becalmed in a sea of L.O.A. theories.

There's no time right now, but maybe this coming weekend I can try to articulate my thoughts on the matter. Until then, though, here's that dead bird again...

Becalmed!

And, no, that's not Katie Rice in the upper right-hand corner!

Bare Bones Experiment Pt. 2

Well, here are the poses I drew, based on the Lines of Action. I meant to have a real "Tom" pose for the final one, but I'm having trouble getting the skeleton just "right." I think I'll grab my wife's "Jane West" and see if I can pose it the way I have in mind. That might help. (Yeah, right!)

Hope you all had fun this past weekend...

Bare Bones Experiment Pt.1

In order to work out my Line of Action frustrations, I'm going to try a little experiment. I've drawn some squiggles, above, that I will use as the basis for a series of drawings of the cat picking up a ball and throwing it. I did a doodle version of this while I was stranded in an airport lounge a few weeks back and am now going to try it in earnest this weekend. I'll post my results, God willin', on Monday. Wish me luck!

Hey, Look - Another Cat!

I drew another Line of Action cat pose. No big whoop. I think my next challenge will be to do the cartoon hands lesson, as they have always been a problem for me.






[Insert witty remark here.]

The Fruits of My Labor (Day Weekend)

I've continued to work on the Line of Action examples from the book this past weekend.



Also, I've amused myself by trying to draw the generic cat head with different expressions. Oh, and there's a certain amount of time-wasting doodles thrown into the mix as well.



I'm starting to feel a little bit more comfortable with the L.O.A. concept, though I obviously have quite a ways to go.

And how was your weekend?

Revampired Battiness

Fellow-blogger, bardhol, has requested ideas for revamping The latest Count Chocula design. Here are some thumbnail quickies that I'm sure wouldn't pass muster at either Cracked Magazine or Wacky Packages HQ, but such is the power of the personal blog that I can post them here:



Check out bardhol's blog and join in the pre-sweetened fun!

UPDATE: FIST WAVE CONTEST RESULTS POSTED HERE!