Wednesday, September 02, 2009

TJ's Progress

TJ had one particular thing I thought he should work on: Some of his constructed forms were a bit wonky or wobbly.

You can really see it here in Hook's skull - or lack of one. He seems to be melting.
You can also see it clearly in this Shere Khan model sheet. I would strongly advise, when you are studying construction and basic concepts, that you don't start with the hardest character ever designed.
In these copies his skull is soft and too pointy, and the eyes don't sit right in the hierarchy.

Here's how solid he really is. A real bugger of a character to draw - let alone animate. Only Milt Kahl could do it.
It's actually the exact same design as this, but with a couple more planes, and more difficult proportions. If you gotta study Kahl, I'd start with his simpler characters and work your way up. Then throw away all his stock expressions unless you wanna be the next Don Bluth.Here's the last couple days of TJ's practices and the forms are coming together - getting more solid.

Bugs' head in that bottom drawing should attach to the neck underneath the cheek/muzzle area.
Jerry is looking pretty good. Some small parts like the hands seem to have webbed fingers.


His squinted eye needs to make more sense on the one where he is sticking out his tongue, but the sheer practice of doing this over and over again is obviously working. TJ's getting more solid by the day.