Character Design Primer

What makes good character designs for animation? This is a difficult subject. The real answer is a talented character designer who understands character. No amount of abstract ingredients can make an artist into a designer if he doesn't have the gift. You can learn technical skills in art, but some talents are so rare that you just either have them or you don't.

Not every great animator is a good designer. In fact, hardly any are. Many cartoon characters just evolved into designs from generic beginnings.If, however you do have the rare gift of design, and you are an animator who understands character then you might be aided in having a discussion started. I say a discussion, because this is such an abstract concept and I've never read anything myself on the subject, so I'm trying to figure it out as we go.






Design itself - in any medium requires purely an aesthetic sense of balance of pleasing shapes or forms. But there are many different occupations that require design and each has its own special requirements. It is a common belief that design must follow function and I'm a believer in this axiom.

An architect doesn't set out to make a building that has a distinct funny personality. He makes a building that first will stand up, and second have a look that matches what the building is to be used for. If he has taste, he will add that on top of the functional aspects of making buildings.

1 Functional

Form - construction:
An animated cartoon character benefits the animator greatly if it has an understandable, mostly logical form.This giant is not really a design. It is a bunch of stock animation forms put together in proportions that suggest a large character. It is strictly functional for animation.

We have to be able to move the forms around in space and if the forms don't work from different angles, are sloppily constructed, the animation is wobbly and unstable - unless we use cheats to get from one disconnected mess of details to the next.


Simplicity
There is a reason that classic animation evolved into simple sensible forms. To make something move you have to draw lots and lots of drawings, so you have less time to spend on details.

Also, the more details you have, the harder it is to control them as they turn around in space.
The more corners and planes you have in your design, the harder it will be to control them in motion.

When a complicated head turns, all the planes and details will shift positions on the head and make the character seem like he is melting.


Can Be Moved Easily

If your characters are designed for function, then your animators will have an easier time doing their jobs.

But being merely functional is not enough to me, to be a character design.

Animation design, because of its need to be functional and easy to move, has a long history of being generic and repetitive in design.
Character design can benefit from some other ingredients.

2 Aesthetic

Pleasing Balance Of Shapes
Some artists, like Craig Kellman have a natural affinity for styles and shapes. They have pure design eyes.
Gene Hazelton took a generic cartoon Baby structure and used his good eye for balance to compose the features in a pleasing way. He also drew the details with a nice combination of curves and corners. Pebbles is not really a design. She's too generic, but Gene applied a lot of style to these drawings to make it look more like it has a design. Gene has designed some very distinct characters though. Here he is pleasing Joe Barbera, who liked conservative shapes.

A talented stylist can make a generic design look much more pleasing. Style is different than design.Chuck Jones has a natural eye for pleasing shapes and forms. He understands construction and in some of his designs, used strong contrasts of forms, shapes and proportions to create animatable, yet distinct and beaitifully balanced and designed characters.
Irv Spence too.
Tom Oreb

Note that these designs are more designs than they are characters. They look good, but don't say a lot about the personalities of the characters-with the exception of Wile E. Coyote.

The more graphic a character is, generally the less it is a character and the more it is a symbol. That's why I think designy characters work best in commercials and ultra short cartoons, where the emphasis is not on story or personality. There are exceptions of course.Ed Benedict

Character designs that are true characters and not just good looking objects with faces, need other traits.

3 Distinct From Other Characters - Recognizable

As I said, many cartoons are designed generically-that is using either non-distinct shapes like circles and ovals, or taking one type of design that might have had some specificity at one time, but after being copied and re-used over and over again has become generic - like the hook nosed mustachioed villain.

Here are a couple model sheets where the characters are still based on classic animation construction, but either the shapes themselves or the details of the features have enough variations to make the characters not look perfectly generic.

If you want your character to have distinct traits, he or she will have to contrast against the other characters. Your characters should be made out of different combinations of shapes, proportions and details.

4 Personality

This is probably the hardest and most important element to get into a graphic design for animation. Personality is contributed by so many creative people on the team-the voice actors, the storyboard artists, the animators, the director...but the designer can suggest personality just by how the character looks, before you know anything else about him.


Here is a generic character being frightened by a specific character.



This is the kind of design I gravitate most towards, and it's why I prefer Ed Benedict over say, Tom Oreb. Ed's characters suggest living beings. You know something about them right away just by how they look. Some designers create purely for aesthetic pleasure, and that has its place too - but not in character-driven cartoons.

A lot of times, my own characters come out of random doodles I scribbled out on a bus or at dinner on a napkin. If I find a scribble that makes me think of a personality. Then I develop it further.

5 Originality

It's hard to think of many animated characters that are super original. Most evolve from previous characters. The more distinct they look, the more "original" they are. If they are generic, or they look just like another character you've seen before then they are not very original.

Here are two very distinct characters. I'll try to think of more.

Madame Medusa is pretty distinct, but only one human in history could have animated her! Lots of people have imitated bits of what she looks like and how she moves since.


Here are some characters that have none of the 5 properties above that I think make up good character design.1 Not Functional
2 Not Aesthetic
3 Not Distinct
4 No Personality
5 Not Original

There is lots more to say about character design. I'll go into more detail about each of the ingredients I've listed here in further posts.

Don Martin - An Original Style -A VISIT TO THE DENTIST PT 1

A couple of commenters who are in favor of stealing styles, characters and ideas have claimed that everything is stolen, thus relieving themselves of the stress of having to be at all original.
I myself believe in being influenced - as opposed to straight imitation - as I have explained in some detail, and I find it hard to think of too many great artists who aren't influenced by previous artists.

Now and then though, a truly unique talent comes along with a style so original that you can't figure out where the Hell it came from. Don Martin is one of these giants. The only other one I can think of is Tom Minton.
I'm sure Don Martin must have been influenced by someone, but he sure put it all together in an original way. The only previous artist I can think of that may have been an influence on him is Virgil Partch. Martin's humor is definitely influenced by Looney Tunes and Tex Avery, but his graphic style is one of a kind.



Visit To The Dentist to be continued...

I'm hoping that Mort Todd finds this post and tells us who Don Martin's influences are-or if anyone else knows for sure, feel free to divulge the secrets!

Gene Colan - and Realistic Artists Drawing Cartoons

I loved many kinds of comics when I was a kid. Not only cartoony comics, but superhero comics too. When I was real young I loved DC comics- Superman and Batman. These were the bland superheroes! I was a bland little boy until I discovered the joys of weirdness. I thought the "Marvel style" was too bizarre looking and harsh until I was about 10 and my friend Tommy King forced me to read a bunch of Kirby comics and then I was hooked. (He also made me tell his family I had accepted Jesus in my heart!) I soon discovered the extreme weirdness and the quirky styles of all the Marvel artists. My favorites were Kirby, Ditko and Gene Colan.

The Marvel style differed from the other "realistic" comics in that they were really dynamic. The artists drew difficult angles and wild powerful poses.Compare these Colan covers to my favorite DC comic, World's Finest.Pretty stiff and awkward! (like today's cartoons). They are funny as Hell though.
(Later, DC started imitating Marvel and introduced more dynamic artists like Neal Adams into their stable. The modernized more serious DC comics to me aren't as fun as the more naive corny ones.)
The Marvel comics were much more alive and full of crazy action.
Each Marvel artist had a really unique style-and Stan Lee promoted that in the comics! Most comics didn't even credit the artists in the 60s. Stan boldly bragged about them. Stan Lee did lots of other brilliant things too and I'll talk about them in a later post.
Colan has a really unique style and it'd take a better man than me to define it. But I could see it all the way across the drugstore.


I was completely jealous (and still am) of the best "realistic artists" because they could draw really difficult things that are outside the realm of most cartoonists. They had to be able to draw not only realistic (sort of) humans, they had to be able to draw them from crazy angles and had to be able to draw every imaginable type of background.

Animated cartoon artists tend to be specialized. Some draw characters, some draw backgrounds, someone else paints them. The odd guy like Jim Smith can do it all, but he's an exception. Bob Camp is another.

In the mid 60s at the height of "The Marvel Age" and popularity, Stan grew so confident in his success, that he started a comic title that made fun of not only the other superhero comics, but his own. (it was largely inspired by Harvey Kurtzman's Mad Comics of the 50s)

I loved "Not Brand Echh"

It was a strange invention. It was a comic that was drawn by the same Marvel "realistic artists" in a cartoony style. A lot of "realistic" artists can't really crossover, but some of them can. Gene Colan drew some great funny superheroes.
They aren't as cartoony as a cartoon specialist, but they are much more alive than most straight comics. The poses are much more natural - specific and defined.
Colan is not afraid of any camera angle. You see angles like this in some modern animated features and they look awkward as hell and unnatural. The animators aren't used to drawing this realistic way -even when they are forced to by the executives.
Look how solid the characters are from every angle. Impressive!
To be continued...



As you can see, I'm not opposed to more realistic cartoon art at all. If it could look that good and natural in animation I'd be all for it. It hardly ever has and there are numerous practical reasons for that. The producers of realistic style animation are anything but practical though so it never works.

Here's a preview of the great Jack Kirby's cartoony style. Coming Soon!

Dan Gordon Does Chicks

Sherm let me know that Dan Gordon did a teen comic calledI had never seen these before and I love the way he draws the girls!

Go to Sherm's site and see more pages and get a link to download some free comics!
http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2007/08/dan-gordons-cookie-comics.html

Thanks Sherm!


DAN GORDON'S SUPERKAT

Ballantine- Principles, Design Sense, Assorted Influences

I found this book at a sale the other day and it is illustrated by someone named Ballantine. I don't know anything about the artist but I really like him (her?) and can deduce a few things from his cartoons.
Strong Principles: His cartoons show that he has had solid training. His compositions are organized and handsome. His poses are natural, yet exaggerated. He uses negative space to draw attention to the positive images. His drawings are organic, use line of action, clear silhouettes, perspective. His shapes are varied, imaginative, appealing and fun. He is impressively skilled.
Design Sense: He has a strong and personal sense of design, although it's obvious he has influences. He tries different styles in different illustrations.

Varied Influences: He is influenced by many artists and life itself.
There are certain artists who have developed powerfully recognizable styles that have followers who do their utmost to imitate their heroes' styles.

Jamie Hewlett
Al Hirschfeld
Mort Drucker
Ronald Searle
Frank Frazetta
Disney
etc.

Each of these artists has a huge assortment of their own inspirations and heroes, but many of their followers struggle to merely imitate the surface details of these complex creators-and it's always obvious when you see it.

"Oh, that's someone copying Mort Drucker", or "Let's See, how does Hirschfeld draw arms again?" or "We're doing this cartoon in the "Spumco style." etc.

Jack Kirby was probably influenced by Milton Caniff, but nobody would accuse him of being a Caniff imitator. Kirby invented tons of things and was in turn imitated by an army of followers- some who are just imitators, others who were inspired and developed their own styles. Barry Smith, for instance started by emulating many Kirby techniques but soon developed a really amazing and original style of his own.

There is a big difference between being inspired and influenced by a lot of artists, and just copying the superficial aspects of one or 2 heroes.

Superficial style imitation second-guesses how someone else would draw something and severely restricts the range of ideas and images you can create. It's self-censorship.
When I look at Ballantine, I see possible influences from Searle, Hirschfeld and others. But Ballantine still has his own style(s) and still takes in tons of information from the world around him and mixes it all together with his own opinion and personality-his "style".

Look at this very designy forced perspective. Beautiful!

In order to be able to truly express yourself and have a personality and style in your work, you need to:

1) Know how to draw- principles (principles aren't style!)
2) Have a wide variety of influences and interests- don't just imitate a "style" you like
3) Keep your eyes open-look at the world, people, animals, things - let the world be your style, don't filter what you see through how you think cartoons are supposed to look

I'm trying my best to help anyone who would like to have strong controls over their pencils. I hope it benefits someone out there. Maybe even I'll be able to take advantage of it someday and make cartoons with other like-minded artists who would want a director to encourage them to put their personalities into the scenes - as long as you have functional principles first!




****Blammo sent us this audio interview with Bill Ballantine:

http://wiredforbooks.org/billballantine/index.htm

Apology to Eddie's Brain

Eddie said the Aladdin/Pocahontas/Filmation pictures depressed him for hours last night so here are some new images to wash away the dirty pictures I put in his brain.

Dan Gordon Funny Animal Comics

DAN GORDON DRAWS FUN

Dan Gordon is a great example of a pure cartoonist. I don't know a heck of a lot about him. He was an animator, storyboard artist (writer) and director for the Fleischers and Famous studios in the 30s and early 40s. He disappears from animated cartoon credits for almost 15 years.

He drew lots of really fun comic books in the 1940s and I collect them.

He has an elusive appeal in his drawings. They aren't perfectly constructed or particularly careful, but the characters all seem really alive and motivated from within. They believe in their little adventures and play their parts with gusto.

A lot of animators in the 40s and 50s drew comic books on the side and it's really interesting to see how they drew when they didn't have to conform to the studio style or the director's style.http://kinky-boot-beast.blogspot.com/2006/12/comic-book-scans.html

Ken Hultgren drew well and perfectly professionally and in a similar style to Dan Gordon's but it lacks the pure fun element in Dan's comics. It's like an illustrator who has been taught to draw cartoons for a living. Chuck Jones' animators drew comics and they are somewhat bland by comparison.
A HANDSOME PAGE FROM A KEN HULTGREN COMIC

Anyway, here's Dan-as pure a cartoonist who ever held a pencil. This is a guy who is nice to kids.

Thanks to my pal, Tara, who gave me this comic!
http://kinky-boot-beast.blogspot.com/2006/12/giggle-december-1943.html









Here's more Dan Gordon from Kent Butterworth's collection!
http://potulentpalaver.blogspot.com/2007/01/john-k-wrote-about-dan-gordon-today-so.html

Dan later became one of the key creative founders of Hanna Barbera's TV cartoon studio. I have seen a few of his storyboard panels and his drawings of Ed Benedict's characters are great. Stylish and sooo cartoony and fun to look at.

If anyone has any, PLEASE post them and I will link to you!

Observation, Creativity, Influence, Stealing, Blind Absorbtion of Styles

Here are a few approaches to creativity. Not every way of making a cartoon is strictly "creative". Literally, to create means to make something up out of nothing, which is almost impossible. Most things good creators do are either inspired by life or other artists - or a combination of the two.

Observation:

Sullivant observes the way things really look and then caricatures it in his own way. Of course it's creative as well, but solidly inspired by the real.

Creativity:

Pure cartoons lean more towards pure creativity. The characters, ideas and stories don't reflect how things really are. They are fantastic and made up by whimsical free-thinking creators.
These animals don't look anything like the way animals really look. You can't even tell what some of them are.

Does this look anything like a real girl? It suggests girl and it's really cute but it takes a huge liberty from reality.Does this look like a cat and mouse?

Here's Bill Hollman's Spooky the Cat:
Does your cat look anything like this? Yet we know it's a cat.

Creativity and Observation:

This is my favorite recipe for creativity and entertainment. Eyes wide open, always on the lookout for new inspiration.
These humans are not realistic at all, but they are far more observant of humanity than say ....this:
These are neither realistic nor inventive. What is the point?

Milt Gross really looks at life and studies it. Then he takes big liberties in portraying it. All his people seem as varied as real life people. They just aren't "realistic". He has a huge knowledge of how things look, street scenes, trees, landscapes, interiors etc. He knows what they really look like and then creates super cartoony versions of them.

Influence: (Observation of other artists)


Influence can be good or bad. If you have a wide variety of influences and you have skills and you observe life, then it's good. If you are only influenced by one style, or a current trend, then you have limited resources with which to say anything original.

This lion is influenced by Sullivant. Subsequent Disney Lions were influenced by the Disney Lion and gradually got more and more toned down.
Clampett's cat on the left is influenced by Spooky, but taken much farther and put into an insane context. Clampett had a really wide set of influences, not just from other cartoonists, but from movies, Musicians, stage personalities, radio. He mixed and matched lots of inspirations with his own personality and observations of the world and created some of the most original and lively cartoons in history.

Probably most artists in history get their ideas from other artists, rather than from life or their own imagination.

Great artists get their ideas and styles from combining life with the ideas and life interpretations of their heroes.

Most entertainers and artists follow the trends.

In the 30s up till today, feature animators imitate Disney.
In the 40s, everyone shamelessly imitated Warners.
The 50s, UPA.

60s to 80s, Saturday Morning cartoons.
Most people imitate whatever is around, whether it is good or bad.

Stealing:

Stealing is when you actually take someone else's idea on purpose and rip it off - and you don't really add anything to it. It's not an accident. It's bold and usually done without conscience.

Blind Imitation or Absorbtion:

I think this is the most prevalent form of art and entertainment.

Not a lot of artists analyze what they like. They just grow up surrounded by media and subconsciously pick up superficial traits of things they are surrounded with.

You can really see this in American animated features. They almost all stem from Disney and no one seems to be able to break the mold.
People who loved Disney as a kid grow up and try to recreate what they've absorbed into their creative selves, rather than observe from life or create new imaginative ideas and styles and characters.

They are trapped (or the execs are trapped) by the severe restriction of never looking outside at the world or at other artists besides Disney and its imitators.

Conservative Unthinking Decadence (FEAR of making a creative statement)

Art that is this narrowly conceived, that does not look outside its closed doors to either the real world or a wide assortment of other artists has no humanity to it. There is no opinion, no comment on the world. it's just product. Product made under the guidance of pure fear and distrust of anything remotely creative.

When a whole era and society degrades to the point where everything is blind absorbtion or stealing, then the art and culture gets more and more primitive.
Eventually everything degrades to no style or substance at all.


Skill declines and is replaced by superficial imitation or sheer nondescript blandness, ideas disappear, humanity dissolves.

Stuff just happens arbitrarily, blandly at great expense so that corporations can feed the masses with ground faceless product until the executives eventually bankrupt their companies and retire with giant bonuses.


You can apply this same concept to not just design, but to movement, acting, story, direction, color and on and on....

Amid's Gift To You

Amid Amidi sent me this clip and a note:


hey john - i think this is a perfect example of the generic stock
acting we see in cartoons nowadays. i wanted to punch somebody after
watching it:





hope all's well,
amid


I didn't think this was as bad as a cartoon as Amid did. It looks a lot better than the last one we looked at- that furry-grafitti style cartoon.

I found this cartoon very interesting. Yes, it has the zippy bounce from every pose to pose acting style we've been discussing, but strangely they've combined it with a big dose of Ren and Stimpy influence (and some Klasky Csupo). It's weird to see surface elements of my style but performed with modern cartoon acting zip-style.

The design, the gross stuff, abstract backgrounds and the gritted teeth are right out of Spumco cartoons. This is somewhat flattering but a mystery to me at the same time.

The one thing that I thought made Ren and Stimpy truly different than other cartoons was the detailed and convincing personalities.

These were conveyed to the audience through the:

Voice acting
Posing
Large amount of varied Expressions - In context to the story
Variety in acted timing- they didn't just bounce from one stock expression to the next, they thought about everything they were doing and saying

For some reason, the layered and human acting in Ren and Stimpy stuff hasn't seemed to influence anyone. Personality and Acting seem to remain formulaic and simple in cartoons of every budget and climate.


You know, it's actually fun to observe people's personalities and gestures and expressions in real life, and then to try to get some of that into cartoons. Or sometimes, to just make something up that you've never seen before.

I think that the main reason so many cartoons don't do that is because of extreme conservatism. Fear of breaking the habits. Every human endeavor has traditions and arbitrary rules.

Many people think . "Well a cartoon can't move like that, or make that kind of expression. It has to move and look like what we have been doing for so long."

Why?

Because that's the way it's done.

Why Is He So Influential?

I loved this character when I was a kid, but never dreamed how influential he would become.

I'm looking for a good clip of Milt Kahl's animation of Ludwig Von Drake. When I find it, I'll put it up and we can discuss it.

Can anyone guess where this is headed?

Pedro Completes Bosko's Bounces

http://pipsqueakscorner.blogspot.com/2007/08/more-boskoness.html


Pedro finished all 3 of Bosko's dances and they are quite good.

My only criticism Pedro, is that they are a bit too stiff or mathematical.

For example, In the first one, you traced-back his front-view head as it tilts side to side. It looks like a moving cut-out. In the original, his head is slightly different as it moves. Keep it organic!

If anyone else has done the animation, put a link in the comments and I'll check 'em out.

Here's the original post:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/08/animation-course-1-lesson-1-beat-kali.html

I am gonna put another good test up today, Oswald's dance which will also help you understand animating to beats.

Stock 90s animation acting vs 40s Custom acting

One of the commenters sent this link to me after I posted the ape cg cartoon short last week. I'm not sure why this was sent. Did you want me to admire it? Or analyze it?

I don't know where it came from or who did it. It is completely typical of the animation acting I see in modern feature length cartoons, whether 2d or CG. It's a good cartoon to study this type of acting, because the furry style design is so primitive and the rendering is non-existent. You won't be distracted by pores, hairs and lots of surface details as you would be say - in a Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks film which use the same style of acting coated in elaborate details.

See if you can watch this, paying only attention to the acting-the expressions the characters make, their gestures, their head moves, body poses etc.



I was going to write a big old long-winded analysis of this type of animation acting, but instead I thought I'd see if others can analyze it.

Remember, I'm just looking for comments about the acting, not about the design, the story, gags or anything else.

Then compare it to the acting in this old cartoon and see if you can spot major differences in the approaches.I'll read your comments and then present my own analysis if you are interested.

More Reasons To Love Marc and Steve

Hey cartoon fans, look who makes Milt's suits!

Marc has dug up super rare Milt Gross comics from the 20s and 30s and generously loaned them to Asifa where the monolithic Steven Worth is scanning them all and making them available to the great unwashed masses of cartoon lovers.




Go see full pages of cartoon fun at:

Marc Deckter Shares The Genius Of His Superior Genetic Heritage




And here are some that Mark Kausler offered!
http://www.animationarchive.org/2007/08/milt-gross-banana-oil.html

Duckwalk Treats in Stunning Black and White

Marc Deckter is a big fan of super cartoony cartoons, in particular 30s rubber hose cartoons. His blog has lots of great articles and images from lost cartoons and fantastic artists.

There are a lot of amazing techniques, styles and ideas that only existed in black and white cartoons and disappeared when cartoons started to get more respectable. Marc loves to show them to you.

Here's a page that has some really fun and informative stuff:

DUCK WALK archives: April, 2006

SURREAL CARTOONS
CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE FROM "BARNACLE BILL"


CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE FROM "SWING YOU SINNERS"



FUNNY ANIMAL CROWDS

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FLEISCHER CROWD SCENES



RUBBER DANCES

CLICK HERE FOR MORE RUBBER-HOSE CARTOON DANCES

GRIM NATWICK'S KILLER BETTY ANIMATION

CLICK HERE FOR EVEN MORE CARTOON DANCING

T.S. SULLIVANT, GENIUS

CLICK HERE FOR MORE T.S. SULLIVANT CARTOONS

CLAMPETT SCRIBNER LOST MASTERPIECE

CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMAGES FROM "EATIN ON THE CUFF"

I would have put direct links, but couldn't figure out how his archives work, but hunt around his site. There's lots of good stuff there!


update (8/21/07): "links added!" -Marc

Oswald: Going To Blazes, Fire Is Funny

Fire Torture

Donald's Cousin Gus - constructed bouncy layered animation

Hey, does anybody know who animated the opening scenes to this cartoon? Gus walking to the mailbox and then the front door?


My favorite style of animated motion happened from 1938 to 1943 or so.

Look at Gus' walk in the beginning of this Disney cartoon. Real bouncy, lots of squash and stretch. Fun overlapping actions-the tail esp. - and you can see all the motion. It's not like the zip zip pose to pose stuff that seems to want to favor the poses, but hide the action.

It revels in letting you see and feel the magic and fun of the cartoon movement. You can only do this sort of thing if you really understand the principles of animation. You can't do this with flat characters. You have to be super careful about controlling the construction. You can't use sloppy drawings or the inbetweens will boil and crawl - like in some early 40s Lantz cartoons.


This is a kind of movement and excitement that can only happen in a cartoon. It's not trying to imitate live-action, it doesn't beg to be taken seriously, it's just plain cartoon magic.

Cartoon magic, to me is a completely logical approach to animation. If we can do this and no other medium can, why don't we do more of it? Or how about even some of it? It seems like for most of our history we have been searching for every excuse to not do what animation can do.

Eddie, explain this to me.



The cartoon has a lot of really beautifully animated scenes in it. (Donald running around the table.) Unfortunately, it suffers from not being very funny, but that's Disney for you. The scenes where the characters do bits of "business" or acting drag the cartoon down. Imagine what a clever director could have done with great animators like these.

Disney quickly abandoned this style in the shorts and moved towards a more pose-to-pose style.

Other studios did this bouncy, squashy style for awhile, particularly Warners.

Elmer Fudd has a great happy walk in Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera. Bugs and Elmer in "The Wacky Wabbit". The Queen on the bike in "Coal Black". Brad Caslor's "Get A Job".

Clampett kept the style going longer than anyone else and expanded it. When he left Warners', it disappeared forever and pose to pose took over. Disney Features had developed into an altogether different full-animation style, not alway pose to pose, but a lot less fun.

I would love to see how this approach to motion could evolve in a studio where everyone decided to take it and run with it. I think you could build a whole separate cartoon-film- language with it and take it to extreme heights of fun.

If I can find a dvd copy of this maybe I'll break down the motion in another post.

Here is more fun stuff in that late 30s, early 40s super-construction style.

Oswald: Not So Quiet, Oswald Can't Keep His Pants On

Oswald is coming.

12 posts on CONSTRUCTION for Ben Forbes and Chet

This is your most important cartoon-drawing principle. Get this down and everything else will be a lot easier!


http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/constructionhttp://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/construction

Read the page from the bottom post 1st and then work your way up.

How "COOL" ruined everything pt 1 -Actual Cool

Cool works very rarely and in not many fields of entertainment.

It sometimes works in music. Here's the inventor of cool.


Elvis is naturally "cool", but he is not merely cool.
He earned the right to his 'tude by having extreme talent and skill and charisma. He has a really wide range of musical influences and styles. He invented all kinds of new ways to sing, not just "cool" ones.

He doesn't only shade his eyes. He has a million expressions and emotions. Cool is just one of them. Watch and see!










Robert Mitchum was cool before they started using the word to describe guys like this.
Again-he's not merely cool. You don't get the right be cool by just keeping your eyes half closed and having no respect for authority. You have to have amazing attributes to begin with.
Robert Mitchum is suave. He has an amazingly deep charismatic voice. He is weird looking and handsome at the same time.
He's rugged and manly. He can act. He can kick your ass.


Nowadays, everyone wants to be cool, but they don't think they need anything to back it up.

Even back in Elvis and Bob's time, not all amazing people were "cool". That is another attribute added on top of the rest of their talents.

There were lots of great musicians that were not what you would think of as cool. Same with actors.

Entertainment needs a wide range of character and styles. If everyone tries to be cool, there is no variety or contrast.

I have a theory that everyone who followed Elvis, up until this day wanted to be cool,so bad, that they gave up all other pursuits, just to cultivate an instant image and quick reward.

That's how we have music with no melody that has only one emotion-anger.
Or we have dark, ugly movies that are way too serious.

The worst medium to try to be "cool" in is cartoons. Cartoonists are among the nerdiest folks on the planet, and we are supposed to be the most honest and observant of the wide variety of human types.

"Tude" is the poor man's cool. It's the executive version of Elvis. As if you can just strike a rebellious pose and automatically earn the right to be thought of as someone who goes against the corporate herd. I think it's the opposite of actual cool.

When we try to be "cool" we abandon all our natural powers of observation, variety and strong humor-humor that makes you laugh out loud, rather than humor that makes you feel like you're part of the cool group.

Many cartoonists think being able to draw well is corny, in the same way that music with melodies or happy melodies is corny.

"That's my style" is an admission of wanting to be cool, instead of wanting to be able to draw a wide variety of characters and shapes and expressions, etc...

There are lots of emotions and moods that could be conveyed in every art, especially cartoons. We can heighten the range and emotions better than any other medium-as long as we don't wear blinders and filter our drawings through what we think is a cool "style".

When I search around Deviant Art or even some of my commenters' blogs I see lots of potentially talented young cartoonists trying too hard to be cool-drawing cool humans wearing baggy pants. Kind of Jamie Hewlett mixed with anime. There are tons of drawings by different artists, yet you would think it's all the same artist.



As if you can just copy the expressions and a couple angular shapes from Gorillaz and presto! You are as talented as Jamie Hewlett. Jamie can actually draw like a sonovabitch and it's his personal style. If you wanna be like Hewlett, learn to draw for real, like he did and make up your own style. If you are not actually cool, you don't have to draw cool. Draw funny if you're funny. Draw cute, or better yet draw many types of characters. Look at the world around you and many different cartoon styles and use your eyes and your knowledge to mix up the most interesting things you see.

Now think about it-how many people would want to watch cartoons with your cool characters in them? How entertaining is a cool cartoon? Why would they pick your cool human characters over the other million cool cartoonists' cool dude characters?

This is a very big subject and I would like to discuss it with folks over many posts if anyone's interested or has their own ideas on the subject.

To be continued...

Do All Bland Movies Make Profits?

WordNet - Cite This Source

bland
adjective
1.	lacking taste or flavor or tang; "a bland diet"; "insipid hospital food"; "flavorless supermarket tomatoes"; "vapid beer"; "vapid tea"
2.	lacking stimulating characteristics; uninteresting; "a bland little drama"; "a flat joke"
3.	smoothly agreeable and courteous with a degree of sophistication; "he was too politic to quarrel with so important a personage"; "the manager pacified the customer with a smooth apology for the error" [syn: politic]

Here's a feature by the safest blandest studio in history:

Here's a "safe" cartoon movie starring an extremely bankable star:





Here are many more safe pictures.















Marc is probably not the only one to think that:
"Being bland is a strategy big studios use to guarantee audiences won't hate their product.
Thus guaranteeing a profit will be made."






Now in the last couple decades I seem to remember lots of bland cartoon movies that flopped. I quickly searched the web and found a few that made a lot less than they cost-and that's not counting the hundreds of millions spent on marketing.

I'm sure I left quite a few out, so help me out in the comments and link to some I forgot.

FROM-WIKIPEDIA:
I copied the following articles from Wikipedia, so you could see that some films made money and some didn't -regardless of whether they are bland or not.

FoxANIMATION-DON BLUTH

Fox Animation Studios was a short-lived traditional animation studio, a division of 20th Century Fox, headed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The department was designed to compete with Walt Disney Feature Animation, which had phenomenal success in the early-1990s with the releases of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.

The studio's output was not as successful as the Disney films were. Only one of its two theatrical releases, Anastasia, turned a profit. The other theatrical Fox Animation Studios production, Titan A.E., made only USD$9,376,845 in its opening weekend—on an estimated budget of $75,000,000—and the studio was shut down as a result.

DON BLUTH

An American Tail (1986) and The Land Before Time (1988) did well in theaters and became animation classics. Each of these films launched a line of direct-to-video sequels, none of which Bluth had any involvement with. Although many of Bluth's fans loved his next film, All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), it flopped, as Disney's groundbreaking film The Little Mermaid was released the same year, but it still became a cult classic. By the end of the decade and through the 1990s, Bluth films such as Rock-A-Doodle, Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park, and The Pebble and the Penguin had dropped significantly when it came to box office returns. Bluth scored another hit with Anastasia (1997), which grossed US$140 million worldwide in part because it used well-known Hollywood stars as its voice talent and stuck closer to long-proven Disney formulas: a sassy and resourceful princess driven to become more than she is, a cruel and conniving villain who uses dark magic, a handsome and endearing love interest, and a comic-relief sidekick.

DREAMWORKS - THE SUCCESSOR TO FILMATION
Dreamworks is the big budget studio with the low-budget sensibility. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve creatively what Filmation spent 5 bucks on.

For years they spent and spent on 2d spectacular bland movies and no one seemed to notice. They finally hit by fluke with Shrek in CG, but has that made up for all the money they spent in their history of extravagant gambing with blandness?

DreamWorks animated films
Traditionally animated films (1998-2003)	The Prince of Egypt (1998) • The Road to El Dorado (2000) • Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) • Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)
Films produced with Aardman Animations (2000-2006)	(these are not part of my bland list-jk) Chicken Run (2000) ;• Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) • Flushed Away (2006)
Computer-animated films (1998-present)	Antz (1998) • Shrek (2001) • Shrek 2 (2004) • Shark Tale (2004) • Madagascar (2005) • Over the Hedge (2006) • Shrek the Third (2007)

1997 - 2003: The rise and fall of Warner Bros. Feature Animation

Warner Bros., as well as several other Hollywood studios, moved into feature animation following the success of Disney's The Lion King in 1994. Max Howard, a Disney alumnus, was brought in to head the new division, which was set up in two studios: one in Sherman Oaks near the television studio, and the other in nearby Glendale. ^[2] Warner Bros. Feature Animation proved an unsuccessful venture, as four of the five films it produced failed to earn money during their original theatrical releases. The first of Warners' animated features was Space Jam (1996), a live-action/animation mix which starred NBA basketball star Michael Jordan opposite Bugs Bunny (Jordan had previously appeared with the Looney Tunes in a number of Nike commercials). Directed by Joe Pytka (live-action) and Bruce W. Smith & Tony Cervone (animation), Space Jam proved to be a success at the box office. Animation production for Space Jam was primarily done at the new Sherman Oaks studio, although much of the work was outsourced to animation studios around the world.

Following Space Jam's success, Warner Bros. Feature Animation continued production on its next feature, Quest for Camelot (1998), which proved an unsuccessful release. The third Warner Bros. animated feature, Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (1999), was not a commercial success, although it received rave reviews and performed well with test audiences. The Iron Giant would eventually became a modern cult classic. The studio's next film, Osmosis JonesTom Sito and Piet Kroon completed the animation long before the live-action segments, directed by Bobby & Peter Farrelly and starring Bill Murray, were begun. The resulting film was not a box office success, although Warners did produce a relatedSaturday morning cartoon, Ozzy and Drix (2002-2003) for its WB broadcast network. (2001) was another animated/live action mix which suffered through a troubled production. Directors

Following the releases of The Iron Giant and Osmosis Jones the feature animation staff was scaled back, and the entire animation staff - feature and television - were moved to the larger Sherman Oaks facility. The final Warner Bros. Feature Animation production was another live-action/animation mix, Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), which was meant to be starting point for a reestablishment of the Looney Tunes brand, including a planned series of new Looney Tunes theatrical shorts.

After Back in Action, directed by Joe Dante (live action) and Eric Goldberg (animation), failed at the box office, production was shut down on the new Looney Tunes shorts and the feature animation unit was dissolved.

Two TV series based loosely upon the Looney Tunes property, Baby Looney Tunes2002-2004) and Loonatics Unleashed (2005-present) have assumed the place of the original shorts on television. (

Richard Rich
animation director

Filmography: Director

• Muhammad: The Last Prophet (2002)
• The Trumpet of the Swan (2001)
• The Scarecrow (2000; V)
• The King and I (1999)
• The Swan Princess (1994)
• The Swan Princess II: Escape From Castle Mountain (1997)
• The Swan Princess III and the Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure (1998; V)
• The Black Cauldron (1985)
• The Fox and the Hound (1981)

MY COMMENTS:

Personally, I think there are many factors that might affect the success or failure of a movie. Marketing, having a brand name luck...Blandness doesn't affect it at all. In an age of blandness when no one offers up any competition-like we have today, then some bland movies have to be successful- because Moms are always going to take kids to kid movies, whether they are good or bad.

They pick the brand name kid movies first. That used to be Disney, now it's Pixar. The rest of the Disney/Pixar wannabees make equally bland pictures and some do well, most don't.

IT'S A COMPLETE CRAPSHOOT.

I think this method of making movies is hugely risky and irresponsible. Most of the movies cost in the hundreds of millions to produce. That in itself is a crazy risky venture that no sane businessman would enter into.

NO, people don't make bland films on purpose: Bland people make bland films, period. It's the only kind they CAN make.

It would make a hell of a lot more business sense to spend less money-which would be easy, because most of the money in animated features goes to stuff that has nothing to do with entertainment:

Crowd scenes
Spectacle
Live Action Camera Moves
Too many lead characters
Ridiculously costly special effect like "realistic water". (I can turn on my tap for free and get realistic water, but who would that entertain?")
Live Action Star Salaries

What would be much less risky is to spend a third of what they spend now per picture, hire proven creative talent and let them entertain. That would be "safe". People will always want real entertainment made by actual talented entertainers. It is human nature. They only accept the bland because that is all they are given anymore.

The safest project I ever worked on is Ren and Stimpy. It cost around 6 million bucks and brought in a billion bucks or more. That happened in the last age of blandness and changed things slightly - for awhile.

All we did was make common sense entertainment for kids. We gave them what we knew that kids want. No market research, no focus testing, no marketing budget. We merely entertained. There was only one executive and she encouraged our natural entertaining abilities.

Then they took it over, spent way more money on it, killed it and it took them another 10 years and billions of dollars in non hits, piles of executives, market testing and more waste until they finally got another one. That was a very risky, illogical, crapshoot way to go.

Marc, in his Defense Of Blandness Post,

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/08/defense-of-blandness-by-marc-deckter.html

actually changed his argument halfway to a defense of Imitation, which is an altogether different subject. Maybe I will argue against that idea next.

Here's Jerry Beck's great resource if you want to see what animated movies have been made:

http://www.animatedmovieguide.com/

Grim Natwick - Drawings and Ideas are part of what animation is

Marc Deckter put up a really good post about Grim Natwick.

DUCK WALK: GRIM NATWICK'S DANCING WAITER

This is animation from 1930-before there were any "rules" about how to animate. They didn't know much about squash and stretch, overlapping action, maintaining volumes, smeared inbetweens, cushions, secondary actions, etc...It isn't super smooth like Disney became a few years later.

But it has something that much "polished" animation that uses all the principles sometimes neglects.

Imagination

Fun

Drawings and motions that are fun and funny.

In the early days, animators thought in terms of entertainment first. How funny can I make my walks and dances and dialogue?

Grim did his best stuff before he was swayed by the mass hypnosis that Disney cast over the whole industry in the late 30s.

Once animation got "smoother" and had weight and all these other abstract properties, many animators started losing track of what cartoons were all about in the first place.

I personally believe in knowing all the fundamental principles of animation, but I don't think that is enough to make entertainment.

Smooth movement isn't entertaining by itself. It's impressive, but not as impressive to me as fun drawings and actions and ideas moving. The principles of animation should be in service of the drawings and entertainment, it shouldn't be an end in itself.



Here is a clip from Cats Don't Dance. The movement is great for sure, but what is being animated is just standard drawings that we've seen a million times before.

It's a polished version of Tiny Toons designs and poses with some Don Bluth thrown in.





Don't get me wrong, I think these animators are hugely talented and would love to be able to work with a great crew like this and have a similar budget to make a fully animated movie.

I just lament that the business uses such strong talent to do the same stuff over and over again. -and to make each animator basically design, draw and move things the same way.





Here's Betty and Bimbo in an unprincipled highly imaginative and entertaining cartoon:

Popeye - "Can You Take It" (1934) - throbbing

Alas, where has all the cartoon throbbing gone?

DETAIL OF AMAZING THROBBING ACTION

MORE THROBBING DETAILS

THROBBING + FIGHTING = MASTERPIECE

Illustrator Joy Ang

Here's a discovery- a modern artist who still uses classic principles, the same ones I always talk about.
She has style on top of all the good solid stuff.



http://www.joyang.ca/

If you click any of the labels below, you can find out some of what's behind her artistic controls.

Modern Comedy timing VS Classic Comedy Timing

Modern Cartoon Timing Tricks

Modern cartoon timing has a real obvious feel and look to it. Everything "snaps" from pose to pose. Here is a CG short Dave linked to in the comments of the Chimptude post.

I don't know anything about it except it has French credits. But the look and feel is all Cal Arts.




It's well done in many ways (some of the ape runs are very clever, it's composed and planned well, etc.), but the pose-to-pose timing is that formula you see in modern disney-esque "comedies". Like "Cats Don't Dance" "Emperor's New Groove" "Incredibles" "Madagascar" etc.
It's a style of timing that draws attention to itself, rather than drawing attention to the characters or story.


The actions have short anticipations and then BANG! - they snap past the final pose and settle in a couple frames. Hardly any inbetweens. It's as if the characters' limbs and features are all spring-loaded. Pull the trigger and the action fires.

I see this all the time in modern cartoons. The zip, zip, zip style.

*NOTE: I'm not talking about the editing or quick cuts. I'm strictly talking about the character animation-the way it moves from one pose to the next.

I'm wondering if the computer is programmed now to automatically apply these stock timing moves to get from one key pose to the next. Anybody know?

Classic Cartoon Custom Timing

Classic comedy timing felt a lot more natural and had more variety to it. Even Tex Avery - who used very stylized artistic timing and some say a "formula", still didn't rely on a small handful of tricks. Every gag and story point has custom timing. Some reactions are slow. Some are fast. The fast takes are done in a variety of ways, not the same way every time. Each animator adds his own style on top of Tex's direction. Each action is timed to make the gag or story point work best.



I would like to see animation get back to a more humanized custom tailored timing. Of course you would need characters and stories that reflect some kind of humanity to inspire the animators.

When I watch modern full-animation, I feel like I'm watching student exercises. (Actually, I think that's what this short is, but it looks just like the professional animated features being made today). I don't get drawn into the characters, stories or gags because I've seen them all so many times before.

Some studios are slicker than others at doing the formulas, but formulas they remain.

Another commenter sent me another short film that has all the stock modern Cal Arts acting triggers in it and I will show you that in another post and compare it to a classic cartoon that I think has more varied and natural acting in it.

Craig Marin's Gift To Mike

The famous puppeteer, Craig Marin,

(co-creator/designer/builder and performer of the Flexitoon Puppets)

saw Mike's toy find and offered this up in appreciation.Craig also made these cool puppets in honor of Mike's God, Soupy Sales.

www.flexitoon.com

And here're some of my toys:





Sorry fellas, I was asked to take the last pic down by the authorities!

Pedro Vargas - The Winner

I think it's great that so many cartoonists are taking the trouble to learn how the classic animators discovered animation's fundamental skills and properties.

Anyone who does this consistently will learn fast.

Here's one test that I thought was particularly good.

Not only did Pedro figure out the timing and the flow of the animation, he made sure Bosko looked like Bosko and that his proportions and volumes stayed consistent which is what a director would normally want.

Good drawing is every bit as important as smooth movement in animation.

Bosko_study
Uploaded by PMVR

Go read how he approached the assignment logically:

http://pipsqueakscorner.blogspot.com/2007/08/mr-slither-animation-john-ks-animation.html


Good job, Pedro! Now apply some of this to your own animation! Use the beats!

CHIMPTUDE

For all you 'tude lovers

Bounce Cycles By Commenters

Well, a few people who visit this blog are really smart!

They are actually copying classic cartoons because they want to learn the best way to animate.

If they keep at it, they will surpass many folks who just kind of wing it and try to teach themselves.

***BTW, count your drawings. There should be 24 drawings in the whole cycle, and each one shot for 1 frame-at 24 frames per second...

Here they are:


Treasure


Groo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woFiSFeTzLY

Mad Taylor

http://madsbasement.blogspot.com/



Anne-Arky

I think Anne just made one up...




Chet

OK, Chet. I watched it. It's good but you shot it on "2's". You need to shoot it on "1's". Just one frame for each drawing. Then it will move faster-it should be 2 beats per second. 12 drawings per beat....makes sense?

Bosco Swing by ~Thunderrobot on deviantART


Guilherme

http://2dflashart.blogspot.com/2007/08/john-k-bosko-exercises.html

I can't get Guilherme's to play either, but maybe you can

Matt Greenwood

http://mgreenwood.blogspot.com/2007/08/bosko-animation-study.html

Matt's action is good, but the volumes keep changing.

Kate Yarberry

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=15097788


Now if all these dedicated folks keep studying the old stuff, they might get to the point where they can animate as well as this:


Milt Gross (thanks to William) - note how everything moves o musical beats!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl28k_jitterbug-follies-1939-milt-gross


So where are the rest of you wanna-be animators?

A Gift From Mike Fontanelli

Mike is Cartoon Toy King. He finds the greatest stuff ever. He found this treat on ebay.

This thing looks like it was designed by Jim Smith for The Ripping Friends.

How many kids do you think ended up with bloody mouths and lead poisoning from these fun implements?


On the box it says this is Dennis' friend Tommy. Ketcham should have drawn him like this in the comic strip!


I wish my mouth was full of these.

Well they sure don't make toys like they used to.

I want a Popeye Colonoscopy Kit for Christmas this year. Can you find me one Mike?

Popeye - impossible cartoon gag

Remember when cartoons were expected to be cartoons?

"CAN YOU TAKE IT? SHAKE IT"

Animation Course Level 1, Lesson 1 - The Beat - Kali Does Bosko

Did you ever wonder how animators got this good in such a short time? This is 1942. only a few years later than rubber hose animation. Who wouldn't love to be able to do this?

Coal Black, Bicycle

Great animators started simple

40s animators were so great because they learned to animate like this below. They started with really simple character designs and animated to musical beats.

Bosko Dance

Early sound cartoons moved to musical beats. Here Bosko is bouncing up and down on a 12X beat.

Every 12 x, he squashes down. The lowest position - with his knees bent- happening on the beats. That means he bounces twice every second. A second is 24 film frames.
This is a 24x cycle. He is waving his arms left and right. Each wave is 12x to go with the beat.


I'm convinced that the quickest way to learn the basics of animation is to start by animating fundamental animation techniques using rubber hose designs. I mean Hell, it worked for all the greatest animators in our history. It could work for you too and you the advantage because you have their stuff to study. They didn't have any reference. They were making it up from scratch through trial and error.

But they were very logical and methodical about it too.

1) Animate Simple Characters - why?

If you are teaching yourself to animate and you start with hard to draw characters, you are obviously going to slow your learning curve.

The more details your characters have the longer it takes to draw them, and the harder it is to control the details in motion.

Tall characters with long legs are much harder to animate than short characters with small proportions.

You want to learn basic motion when you are starting out, so keep your characters very simple (and rounded) and you will learn much faster and better.

2) Animate to beats

Animating to a regular beat teaches you:

Rhythmic timing: it feels better- imagine a song with no beat, it wouldn't be much fun. It would meander.

General timing - you get used to what different amounts of frames feel like - what 12x feels like as opposed to 8x.

Classic animators and directors were like drummers. They automatically thought of their scenes as rhythms and that helped make their timing so crisp.

Kali's First Bosko StudyIf you wanna learn animation fundamentals, you can copy these animated cycles and shoot them, like Kali is doing.

As you copy them, analyze what you are doing, so that you can apply general techniques to other scenes. Count how many frames it takes to do each action.
Note the wave action that the arms are doing. This concept can be used in infinite variety.
Note in these bounces, that there are less drawings going down into the accent, and more coming up. That is what gives the beats a noticeable accent. If the timing was even, it would just seem to float up and down. It would be mushy.


Kali animating:


Compare the Bosko animation to the McKimson animation from Coal Black. The fundamentals are the same.This is animated on an 8x beat-the music is faster than the Bosko scene. The accents are stronger too.
Every second beat is accented stronger. 8,8,8,8 etc.
Her right foot moves down faster than her left foot (the one closest to us). That foot moves at a more evenly spaced timing as it circles the pedals.

This scene is way more layered than the Bosko animation, but it's based on the exact same concepts. Learn your fundamentals and soon you will be able to apply them to more complex scenes.

RUBBER HOSE TAUGHT THE BEST FUNDAMENTALS:

Learn to animate to beats using simple cycles and simple circular characters. This is a good first step towards understanding motion and rhythms.

Scenes like this are the foundations of the American style of animation. Snow White, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Gerald McBoingBoing... all these different styles are built upon the same foundations.

There are 3 cycles in the Bosko clip we put up. Copy them all and stick with this free course and you will see yourself advance past your more stubborn peers in no time.

If you post your tests on your sites, I'll link to them in another post.

Once I have 20 people who have copied this Bosko animation, I will post lesson 2. Rubber Hose Walks.

What basic concepts you learned from this lesson:

Beats

Bouncing

Accents

Wave actions

Cycles

Stock Disney Characters - The bland lead -UP FOR TESTING PURPOSES ONLY

Does this kid have any of the ingredients that you need to make up an individual character? Like:

A Specific Design
A Unique Voice (an extinct concept)
A Specific Personality
Specific Mannerisms
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-makes-character-character-pt-1.html#comments

DISNEY'S LONELY WORLD OF SIX CHARACTERS

Disney characters belong in a category by themselves.

They are neither realistic specific individuals culled from observation of human nature, nor are they imaginative creations from a cartoonist's mind.

They are creatures in limbo. Neither real nor cartoon.

Most Disney characters have one simple personality trait and a visual gimmick to help us see it. Tramp leads with his butt, Sneezy sneezes, Captain Hook sneers, Smee wiggles his fingers, etc.

The odd one even might have 2 traits although I'm struggling to think of one that does. These one and maybe 2 trait characters have been recycled for decades by animators and executives whose only influence seems to be other Disney cartoons or Disney imitators.

It's as if there is a group of people who live in a tent somewhere in the middle of the earth and have no contact with the upper world. They have never seen real humans interacting, so can't caricature real human psychology in its infinite variations. They have also never seen any other artists' characters or interpretations of humanity. They have only other Disney and Disney imitations to study. Actually, in the last 20 years, they have started to be influenced by Saturday Morning cartoon characters, so now we have a strange mix of stock Disney with stock Filmation characters.


For decades, we've have endless repetitions of a small handful of stock stylized cliched characters. Why is this so?

It all started with Walt Disney himself. It took him years to get to the point where his characters evolved even one superficial trait. His first star character had not a single trait.

DISNEY CHARACTER 1 - THE LEAD BLAND

Mickey is The Ultimate Bland Character

His appeal completely depends on how cute the individual artists can draw such simple shapes.

He's made of circles and ovals and has no personality.

He doesn't even have a distinct voice. It's just Walt in falsetto-which sounds exactly like anyone else doing a falsetto.

He's very cute though and is a good character to train your youngest kids to understand cartoons with.He makes a good logo.

Bland Evolves From Mice To Boys

Here's a puppet that longs to be a real boy.

The drawings are very well constructed but there is no design.

It's not a specific puppet and it doesn't have a personality.

He has a mildly distinct voice, unlike the later generations he spawned.
This basic generic boy design has been in continuous use for 6 decades now...

Pinocchio turns into a "real boy"Peter Pan instructs a group of different sized versions of himself.

Milt Kahl Perfects The Bland Boy LeadAdd some angles and you get this modified generic boy design, using very strong construction and clever proportions.

It's very good drawing but suggests nothing unique about the character

he is merely a well constructed symbol of "boy". Any boy.

The Disney boy was never this well drawn again...

How Many Times Can We Use The Same Kahl Boy?tone him down and re-use him

After you take out the one thing that made the character worth watching...the good drawing, and all that's left is the blandness.

None of these characters have a personality or a unique look, nor a unique voice - nothing to make him a character. It might as well be a talking stick with a wig.

Decade after decade the stick gets more and more watered down.

add some Don Bluth influence

...sometimes he's even a girl

here's what the bland boy/girl becomes when you take away the good drawing and construction...
a Saturday morning cartoon version of Pinocchio in drag.

Again...Note that the bland fish is the same "design" as the bland boy in drag.

Milt Kahl Boy And His Robot

Milt Kahl seems to have had a lot of assistants, each of whom are the only true purveyors of his legacy.

Iwao Takamoto was once Milt Kahl's assistant and did his own version of "Wart". This TV version actually looks better than most of the expensive quality theatrical versions from the next group of Kahl assistants that followed.

Modern Version Of Bland Lead BoyIn the 80s Disney had an influx of Saturday Morning cartoon artists and influences, and the principles that held together the classic Disney cartoons began to melt away.

Take the same basic generic design and add uncomfortable proportions and use vague shapes for the details...

Here's a movie that has 2 bland lead characters. Once in rodent form, and then again in human form.

Remy

Nondescript in design (a realistic rat with googly eyes) and in personality.

(Character description from the Ratatouille website)

This description does not say anything about the character's personality. It tells you he can smell well and that he has a dream. The Rat tells you that himself many times in the movie.

When he runs on all fours like a real rat it's amazingly animated. When he stands on 2 legs and acts, he acts just like every Disney character from the last 30 years, not like an individual.

Linguini

Here's a Disney bland boy that brags in the movie about how bland he is. And he gets the girl anyway. The Sassy one.

The design is slightly different than the regular Disney boy. He has a big nose now and no jaw. That probably took a lot of guts to make those changes , but it made him even wimpier than the regular bland lead. The expressions and gestures are still the same as every Disneyesque character, whether boy, girl, man or rat. He still acts like the girl in Rescuers - with a bit of Medusa thrown in.

I have to admit, this is the first time I've seen a movie where every character actually tells you what their personalities are-even the one that admits to not having one.


Disney wanted you to know what each of his characters' single trait was. He named each character after his one trait to be sure you got it. Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy etc...

But he also wrote scenes that demonstrated what their characters' simple personalities were.

Now the movies are so unsure of whether the story is carrying itself, that they have the characters tell you not only everything they do (exposition) but...who they are. I don't think there is even a word for that yet.

But it's completely acceptable, even to the critics whom the movie calls worthless.

(Character description from the Ratatouille website)

Of course having bland characters in animated movies is not a handicap. Not while every other movie is equally bland. Moms still take their kids to animated movies to see talking animals and humans with big heads.

I just want to make the point that they aren't going because of the rich personalities or story. These movies must have some other attributes that bring people in. For now, I'm just focusing on personality and character.

Why do bland characters exist in the first place?

What is the purpose of characters with no distinctive traits?

I have a theory that I don't totally believe. Most animated features want to outspend the competition. The films are built on special effects, spectacle, details, crowds and a showing off of how much money they can burn. With that kind of story maybe strong characters would distract the audience from the impressive flying money.

Maybe the film makers think you need a central character with no distinctive traits so that you can piggy back him through the movie and experience the expensive special effects, wobbly cameras and spectacle through him.

You project your personality onto the blank slate and go on a roller coaster ride.

I personally think that is a rotten excuse to have a bland character and to tell you the truth I doubt that's what the makers of these pictures have in mind.

Why are there blands then if it's not on purpose? Because the cartoon makers don't actually think about what they are doing or why. They just do it by rote. I doubt they even realize these characters are bland. They just have watched so many Disney, Bluth and Pixar movies growing up, that they automatically absorb the stock formulas and repeat them robotically when they get their chance to make a film.

Marc Deckter, on the other hand gives them more credit than that. He thinks they are completely aware of the blandness they wring and that it's on purpose.

Next thrilling post:

Marc Deckter has a scientific explanation for bland characters in film and cartoons. (similar to his defense of Muzak)

Followed by:

The Disney Evil Homosexual

Popeye - "Blow Me Down" (1933) - fighting

Where else are you gonna get good beatings like this?

"OH! MY BACK!"

Pete Emslie Starts To Solve The Bland Problem

If you are going to do "realistic" type stories in animation (I don't know why anyone would want to to, but that's all they seem to do), then you ought to learn something from live action. Real people are unique; they aren't all clones of each other like you see in animated features.

Here Pete Emslie took a bunch of the real child actors I featured a couple posts ago
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/07/live-action-blands.html#comments
and did caricatures of them in an animatable style. (by keeping the details to a minimum and giving them some construction)


Pete's caricatures still have a somewhat Disney-esque look to them (without being all out Cal Arts style), all the kids have been cutesified, but it's a great first step towards breaking free from formula cartoon designs.

If I had really talented artists like Pete and some others, I would make them compete with each other to keep refining their characters and making them more and more specific-and combining different characteristics of different kids until we had something really unique and cartoony, so we weren't merely copying live action characters.

Some could be on the cute side, some on the funnier side. Variety and distinction is the key.

At Pete's site he explains in detail what his thoughts were:
http://cartooncave.blogspot.com/2007/07/bland-be-banned.html

As I said, if I was making a reality based animated feature, I would keep exaggerating and refining and doing variations of the designs until they become more and more specific and alive.

HOW "DEVELOPMENT" KILLS IDEAS

What usually happens instead in a feature studio, is the producers and executives keep shaving off all the unique parts of designs and personalities until the characters end up being the same old faceless, personality-less cartoon stereotypes.

Harald Siepermann explains that creative process here:

Harald Siepermann's Clayton gets toned down by the Disney process

A Defense of Blandness - by Marc Deckter

MARC DECKTER

Marc Deckter has the makings of a top Hollywood animation executive. He's figured out how they try to rationally justify what they do every day by amphibian instinct.

He has concocted an executive-style argument for blandness and through the goodness of his heart has agreed to share it with the unwashed masses that Hollywood loves to bilk.

I just want you to know that Marc himself hates blandness and likes only the cartooniest of cartoons. In fact anything that tries to sneak in a story or inspirational message or tells him it's ok to be the best Marc Deckter that he can be completely enrages him. The other day, he gave me his review of the latest monstrously expensive bland feature and it wasn't pretty.

Marc is one of the good ones.
But he does love defending the rights of the insincere, lame and tasteless.

So far he has come to the aid of poor misunderstood industries like McDonald's, Rap and Muzak. He hasn't defended Christian Rock yet, but I'm confident he is working up his arguments.

Today he rescues Animated Features.

THE DEFENSE OF BLANDNESS

by Marc


Being bland is a strategy big studios use to guarantee audiences won't hate their product.
Thus guaranteeing a profit will be made.

This is not an argument about making good entertainment - it is about being a safe studio.

This strategy is not good for making audiences love your work, it's only good at making audiences not hate your work. This is an important distinction.

BLAND IS SAFE

- with a generic/bland character, you don't have to worry about your audience hating the character, because there is not enough substance to hate. It'd be like hating a blank piece of paper. What is there to dislike?

Once your character starts making opinions and having specific characteristics, some people may like the character - and some people might not. So you have immediately created a potential for losing some of your audience.



BIG STUDIOS NEED TO GUARANTEE THEIR MOVIES ARE GOING TO MAKE BIG BUCKS

- the studios are investing a lot of money into these features. And the investors want a guarantee that they will make their money back. The studio can't afford to have their features flop. So what's the safest way to guarantee financial success?

1. copy a subject that has already been proven succesful. CG bug movies are popular? Let's make another one. The mom in the video store looking to buy her kids a movie to watch will remember she liked one bug movie, and she'll buy another one. And another one. And another one....

2. use pre-existing characters that already have a fanbase. Scooby Doo. Garfield. Alvin and the Chipmunks.

3. make characters that are difficult to dislike. The more bland and generic a character is, the less there is to dislike. Look at Mickey Mouse. His personality is like a blank piece of paper - there's nothing there. And look how popular he STILL is! I see people wearing Mickey Mouse t-shirts at least once a week. You might not love Mickey, but I'll bet you don't hate him - there's nothing to hate.

CREATIVITY AND EXPERIMENTATION IS RISKY

If you are actually creative and experiment with your art, you are taking a risk. People may love your product, but there is also the risk that they will not love it. And a big studio just can't afford to take that kind of risk.

So the big studio keeps their eyes on the smaller studios - the ones that are experimenting - and then when a smaller studio has success, the big studio will superficially copy their experiment and make a guaranteed profit.

So you see, I'm not defending blandness as an artistic choice - but as a smart economical choice on the part of a big studio that is investing millions into these features.

Now the argument, of course, is that if a big studio released a creative and not-bland feature, everyone would love it. Well maybe - but maybe not. But there is always a GUARANTEED audience (guaranteed profit) being safe.

IN CONCLUSION

Basically my point is that it is not idiotic that these big studios want to play it safe.

Big studios with Big Budgets cannot risk Big Failures. It's as simple as that.

HOLES IN THIS THEORY

The hole in this theory, of course, is that there are plenty of bland films that were not great successes. John has explained to me that there were tons of Disney rip-offs in the 90's that all failed (Ferngully, etc...) and did not make profits.


But in the past 10 years or so, the bland theory seems to be ringing true. I guess we can't trust these numbers 100%, but if they're even close to being accurate, its pretty obvious how profitable the bland theory is:

CG Bug Movies

A Bug's Life (Pixar, 1998)
Budget $120,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $162,798,565 44.8%
+ Foreign: $200,600,000 55.2%
= Worldwide: $363,398,565


Antz (Dreamworks, 1998)
Budget $105,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $90,757,863 52.8%
+ Foreign: $81,000,000 47.2%
= Worldwide: $171,757,863


The Ant Bully (Warner Brothers, 2006)
Budget $50,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $28,142,535 51.3%
+ Foreign: $26,765,154 48.7%
= Worldwide: $54,907,689

CG (and real) Penguin Movies

March of the Penguins (Warner Indepenent, 2005)
Budget $8,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $77,437,223 60.8%
+ Foreign: $49,955,016 39.2%
= Worldwide: $127,392,239


Happy Feet (Warner Brothers, 2006)
Budget $100,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $198,000,317 51.5%
+ Foreign: $186,258,869 48.5%
= Worldwide: $384,259,186

CG Fish Movies

Finding Nemo (Pixar, 2003)
Budget $94,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $339,714,978 39.3%
+ Foreign: $524,911,000 60.7%
= Worldwide: $864,625,978


Sharktale (Dreamworks, 2004)
Budget $75,000,000

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $160,861,908 44.2%
+ Foreign: $202,668,288 55.8%
= Worldwide: $363,530,196

CG Fairy Tale Parody Movies

Shrek (Dreamworks, 2001)
Budget $60,000,000

Domestic: $267,665,011 55.3%
+ Foreign: $216,744,207 44.7%
= Worldwide: $484,409,218


Hoodwinked (Weinstein Company, 2005)
Budget $15,000,000 (estimated)

Domestic: $51,386,611 46.9%
+ Foreign: $58,103,417 53.1%
= Worldwide: $109,490,028

( I pulled these numbers from boxofficemojo.com and imdb.com)

All of these bland features made profits, so how idiotic could it be to make bland films?

Visit Marc at his site:

http://duck-walk.blogspot.com/

Something Not Bland: Popeye - "Can You Take It" (1934) - walks

I figure we needed a break from all the blandness so...


Here's the opposite of bland. Now I knew tons of little kids who indentified with Popeye, even though he is a bizarre looking 90 year old toothless man who eats terrible tasting spinach.

Everything about him is unique and original, even his walks and taste in women.

CLICK HERE FOR WALK #1

He has more personality that the rest of animated feature heroes combined and he's funny and charismatic.


Kids act out Popeyes antics all the time (if they've seen his cartoons). They sing the songs. Do you know any kids who sing Celine dion or Elton John cartoon songs?

If you were a kid, who would you rather be, Linguini or Popeye?

VARIETY OF WALKS ALL IN ONE POPEYE CARTOON

No time is wasted in these cartoons. Even getting from one place to the next is not only entertaining and musical, it further defines the characters.



Animated features could learn some editing from classic short cartoons. No filler. Loads of personality. Non-stop fun. Variety. No bullshit. Sincere entertainment.

CLICK HERE FOR WALK #2

CLICK HERE FOR WALK #3

This is all done for a fraction of what it would cost to produce even one minute of boring stock full animation today (even considering inflation). And it goes a lot farther.



Marc Deckter prepared these clips and he loves these cartoons and personally dislikes blandness himself. He gave me his review of Ratatouille the other day and it pretty much matched mine and the other cartoonists I know.

NONETHELESS, he is blandness' greatest defender!


Next!

Is Hollywood Really Run By "Liberals"?

I thought this comment was worth its own post:

LIBERALS ARE MAKING THE CARTOONS - IT'S THEIR FAULT

R said...

I agree with you in your overall distaste for blandness but its unfair to pin all of this on Christians and conservatives. Most of the good cartoons were produced when the country was far more Christian and conservative. Go figure!

Are Christians and conservatives running Hollywood now? I don't think anybody can say that with a straight face. The fact is, liberals have dominated the entertainment industry for the past forty years. If you're going to pin the current state of affairs on anybody, it has to be them.

I'll grant you that Christian "entertainment" is the bottom of the barrel. Probably because its mostly made by amateurs now. However, putting that aside, I think real conservatives are not the problem. For some strange reason, its the liberals, in striving for their utopian fantasies, who give us the "let's all cooperate and save the planet" cartoons. "Let's have diversity and equal time for all" cartoons have been the ruin of real entertainment.

LIBERALS IN NAME ONLY, BUT NOT IN PRACTICE

JohnK said...

When I use the term conservative, I'm not talking about the political party, I'm using it in its dictionary sense.

Conservative people like to leave things the way they are. (The way the last generation of liberals and the previous generation of radicals made them). They distrust new ideas and creativity in general.

I can't think of a more conservative concept than "political correctness". This is designed to stop you from using observation to judge what you see around you. No more inductive reasoning. Turn off your senses and your faculties. Burn Aristotle's books.

The so called "liberal" democrats are as conservative as anybody. they just have a different set of dogma than the "conservative" Republicans.

Anyone who follows the party line is by nature conservative, no matter what party he belongs to. He surrenders his free thinking to the cause.

If you belong to the Disney party, you are conservative in your idea of creativity. Completely afraid to break the mold.

SpongeBob is the conservative version of Ren and Stimpy.

Simpsons is ultra-extreme conservatism-when you compare it to All In The Family or the Honeymooners.

Politically affiliated liberals may run some of Hollywood, but they follow the most Republican of practices. They squeeze out the competition, blitz market their blandness into success and brainwash the masses, who never get to see alternative, more creative and skilled entertainment.

Didn't it make anyone else besides me feel ill to see the Dreamworks robber barons schmoozing (and funding!) Barack Obama? The guy who says he's gonna change things?

Who are bland leads aimed at?

I think I have it figured out.

They are sometimes referred to as the "identity character". Like you are supposed to identify with them. But does anybody? Or do we just put up with them so we can get some animated action here and there?


Identity Characters are not Very Identifiable

Who are these bland goody 2 shoes boy characters aimed at?


They can't really be aimed at real boys. No real boy wants to be "good" or normal. Most boys want to be bad. They want to be tough, they want to get away with stuff, they want to skip school, they want to be cool, funny or whatever - anything but middle of the road and bland or good!

Grown up society tries to make us bland (especially today) but most kids are humanity in the raw, and all very different.


Girls like bad boys better than good boys too.

Good boys who are normal, first of all don't really exist in the real world.

The closest thing we have to that are sissies, and not too many people in middle America want to be sissies.

Yet good sissy boys are really common in animated cartoons, and those are the characters that we are supposed to be identifying with.



I don't know about you, but I find that strange and contrary to being "normal". Normal people want adventure, excitement, surprises and charisma from their heroes and celebrities.

So who the heck are these characters aimed at?

Moms Want Boys To Be Good Upstanding Citizens
And they should. That's their job. But it's our job as entertainers to undermine the Moms! Humans need balance. A pure good person won't have any friends when he grows up. He'll be too damn boring.

Walt Disney aimed at Moms, knowing that they would "drag the men in", including the boys. He must have thought - like Marc Deckter does, that shaded protagonists would turn people away-which I find to be an incredible theory completely unsupported by history! I'll put up his "Defense Of Bland" next.

Many animation producers -and animators themselves- still believe this theory, probably not because they've thought a lot about it, but because all animated features have bland characters and that's what they are used to so they just keep doing it by rote.

If you give someone not very creative a job running a creative department, what's the first thing he will do? Take out anything that's creative and unique. Not because he is responsible or a good business person, but because conservative people in charge fear talent and imagination.


To them we are witches that need to be bound up and squeezed just hard enough to let a tiny bit of magic ooze out...but not toooo much or all the screaming demons of fun and imagination and joy will come charging out to destroy them!


What is "Family Entertainment"?

MYTH

I think of it as a general term for entertainment that no one in the family wants to watch. But Moms wants you to watch it so that you will learn valuable lessons about life. They aren't entertained by it either, but they'll watch with you out of duty.

Christian TV shows are the most extreme example of these kinds of shows and many people watch them just to laugh at them. Because it's fun to be bad.

Family sitcoms like "Leave It To Beaver" or "The Partridge Family" are sort of like that too, but not anywhere near as extremely boring as the characters in "family" animated cartoons. Live action characters can't help but have some uniqueness, just because it's almost impossible to be completely average in reality.

Every real person is different. Only in animation can everyone be right in the middle. But what a strange goal for animation.

Most animators insist they are "caricaturing reality", when to my eyes, they seem to be doing the exact opposite, they are taking out the interesting things from life, rather than using the immense potential of our art to draw attention to them and enjoy them to the fullest.