Monday, May 24, 2010

Toy Drawing 10: How To Draw Porky

If you are trying to teach yourself classical cartoon construction, this is a gift from on high. From high up the stairs where Mike Fontanelli lives. It's a beautifully sculpted 3 fully dimensional Porky Figure.
Good sculptures of cartoon characters tell you what cartoon shapes really look like in perspective. Note in the 3/4 shot that his cranium is not stacked directly on top of his lower face and jaw. His brain extends behind his jaw.
Toys don't generally have a line of action. They need to stand up, so they are usually sculpted around a vertical straight line. This helps you isolate just the construction of the character too.
Note where the shadow falls in his eye. That tells you that his eye is sunk into his flesh around the edges and that the part of the eye at the right is farther away, because the shadow indicates we are seeing more of the edge of the sunken eye on that side.
Learning to draw something rude in 3 D is especially important to the eager student of animation.

A nice down shot of his impressive braincase.
See how the cheeks and smile work? Together, they form a muscle of flesh that points towards just above the center of his snout (nose).

Bonus Pigs:


Now if you get Mike to strip and pose for you, you could also learn the construction of Tex Avery's Spike the bulldog.