Layout breakdowns - Dialogue mouths

BREAKDOWNS - CONNECTING TO LAST SCENE

these 2 frames will barely register; they are just there to connect George's pose from the last scene into his main pose in the new scene. It's a hook up that by today's regulations doesn't hook up. But in motion and cuts it works.

KEY

Here's the key pose that's based on the storyboard pose. Below are some breakdowns of main mouth positions created in layout. They all work within the emotion of the key pose but accent and color the dialogue.

DIALOGUE POSITIONS - LIPSYNCH IS ACTING, not merely "mouthing"

In most cartoons the same few mouth shapes are used over and over again. This looks robotic to me-even in fully animated features there is an obvious formula for lip synch.

I like to design every dialogue scene based on who the character is, and how he feels at that moment. I listen to the track, close my eyes and imagine the character. Then I draw the appropriate mouths. It's a lot of fun to custom design mouths.

What I do before I design mouth shapes is write out the dialogue and figure out where the accents are. The accents are usually vowels and that is where the biggest open mouths will be.

Since this is limited animation, I plan to reuse certain mouth shapes in different orders for different words. That's why I write out the dialogue. Above the dialogue I assign which mouth shape I'm gonna use. Each mouth shape has a letter or 2 that phonetically describes the sound.This is not your normal "O" mouth, obviously. I just thought I would do something related to the key mouth shape.
"OO" mouths work best when preceded by an "O" mouth. The O provides a quick accent that helps you notice the "OO".

"I" mouths are long and tall, just like the letter itself.

"T" 's can be used for "N", "G" and some other letters.

"M" can also be used for "B" and "P", although you can make a separate mouth for each that build in intensity.

KEY

layout breakdowns

KEY

What I'm calling the layout "keys" are the drawings that match the storyboard expressions. These drawings, as I explained in my last post, are tricky to do and are just translations of the previous artists' storyboard poses.

I have a main rule in my cartoons and that is for each successive stage of the production to build on the previous stage.

The storyboard artist tells the points of the story outline....then pluses them...but he doesn't ignore the points or tone them down, or rewrite the story. He tells the main points, then adds details, gags and dialogue - all in context of the storyline.

The layout artist then takes the storyboard artists' key poses and stages and makes them stronger (but doesn't throw them all out and start from scratch).
Then he adds more poses and expressions to color the scenes and make the story points, gags and acting stronger.


In most studios, each of the creative stages of a cartoon tones down the previous stage until the final film is a very bland literal conception of the written story, that doesn't even make the story points clear, let alone emphasize them.

To me, the story is just the beginning of the fun, but it is important and everyone working on the film must understand what it's about and what each successive point and gag means.

You need to believe the story and the characters and know the hierarchy of ideas and what to stress in order to make the audience understand and enjoy the story.

I've worked at studios where the artists didn't know the story at all, and didn't even have a complete copy of the storyboard to work from. They never knew the meanings of their scenes or the context of them within the overall story. They had no idea what to stress and were told not to stress anything anyway. Just trace the model sheets and don't worry about the performance. Crazy. But that explains a lot of modern cartoons.

My layout artists have to do more drawings than the storyboard poses. I don't want them to throw out or tone down the SB poses, but that's not where the creative part for the pose artist comes in. The fun part is creating the extra poses that link the main ones, or accent them, or color the overall scene.

The sb keys are the jumping off point for the layout artists, but there is plenty of room left to be creative in between the main poses.

BREAKDOWNS

these are connecting links between the main expressions and poses. This scene only had a couple of breakdown poses. I'm showing you a simple scene to get the idea across.

KEY

Next post, I'll show you breakdowns using dialogue mouths and expressions that really help act and color the scenes.

Dialogue does not just happen in your mouth. But mouth shapes are a big part of acting. You'll see.

Slab N Ernie Models 1

The Bad Catholic Girls Models

Besides these 3 girls having slightly different designs and builds, there is another point in the panels I could talk about.
The characters interact. They don't just line up all parallel to each other.
They move in and out of each other's spaces. They react to each other's movements.


They are all acting independently. When doing this, you have to be careful to still make their different poses add up to a clear overall composition, so it doesn't look chaotic.





Even their legs move independently.

And they have knees made of both flesh and bone, not just cartoonskin.

Sody models

more sides of George and the Science of Close Ups

A specific expression contains more than one emotion. This is an expression of wonder, discovery and eagerness.The above is an accent expression. It's close up and more detailed to tell you that his emotion has changed dramatically. The closer the framing is on a character, the more details you can add and more important: THE MORE CONTRAST YOU CAN DRAW IN THE BASIC DESIGN.

In close ups I always caricature my own character designs. Just the same way as I would caricature a living human by exaggerating the contrasts of someone's face.

***Be sure that the extra details flow around the larger forms. Hierarchy!

The smaller the character is in a scene, the less detailed and less contrasted the proportions can be.




George's Soft Side:

Many people (esp. hippie ladies) think that all Republicans are evil all the time. They yell and scream and live by archaic blind rules of societies long dead. This is only one side of a regular guy, though.
George doesn't yell and scream all the time. He has softer elements to his personality. George has much empathy for God's creatures, especially the ones that recognize their place in the grand order of things.
George doesn't hunt out of malice for animals. He just believes that it is man's place to destroy the environment and that God put us here and gave us the wits and hormones to do it.
In these images by the extremely complex Jim Smith, George is explaining this with great empathy to a poor lowly creature before he takes him out.

There is more than one emotion happening in these drawings too. He is not only showing his concern for the lesser creature's feelings, he is also asking for you to understand and approve of his murderous ways. He wants you to absolve him of any guilt and way down deep inside he knows that there is probably something wrong with killing for sport.

Some urges are so powerful and ingrained that they are impossible to resist even when you know they might cause harm. Like the urge to pull triggers, an urge that has been implanted in man by God. For George, it just feels so damn to tug a trigger that he has to find honest and decent justifications sanctioned by God, America and tradition.
So you see, hippie ladies, George is not always mad. And is not all bad just because he has manly urges.

George gets mad when something doesn't follow the rules; when he can't control a situation, but as long as you obey the natural order, he loves you. He'll still blow your brains out if there is a good enough justification, like any good Republican would, but he should still be loveable.

Jimmy Models over the years

If you wanna learn to draw Jimmy, do it the same way you studied George. Copy the first few poses exactly, proportions, construction etc. to get used to him. The drawings near the bottom are harder because the poses are more complicated, so don't start there.
This is my favorite face of Jimmy above. I've never been able to recapture his joyful look of discovery with a hint of evil.

Here's Jimmy after a diet of potato chips and sodas.
Now he starts getting complicated. Don't be distracted by all the wobbly details. They all flow along his central line of action and basic silhouette.

George In Context

Once I have figured out the basic construction of a character and am comfortable with drawing him from different angles, and I know his basic personality, then I find it much easier to create poses and expressions if I have a story to tell.

This is the big difference between drawing random sketchbook doodles just for fun and drawing functional drawings in context. The functional drawings have a purpose, other than just floating on a page cluttered with more competing doodles. Functional drawings have to tell a story, and for me those are actually easier to draw than random sketches.



When I have a story playing in my head, then the drawings just pour out. I don't have to consciously think up an expression. I just feel them happening as I make drawing after drawing of a character acting out the scene he is in. People make fun of me when I am drawing storyboards or layouts, because my whole body convulses and my face distorts as I personally experience what the characters are feeling with each drawing. When they try to interrupt me to ask a question, I barely even know they are there. I don't want to stop the natural flow of the story I am drawing. I never knew I did that until people started laughing at me - or got mad!

I don't know if I am recommending that to anyone else, but it makes another point - it is important when doing continuity to be totally focused on your drawings and story. You have to immerse yourself into the scenes. Don't "multitask". Don't watch TV or rock out to your IPOD if you want your drawings to feel natural, alive and performing at their best.
Sketchbook virtuosos sometimes have trouble making the transition from the random to the purposeful and here's why.

When you first try to draw poses and expressions with backgrounds together on purpose, you stiffen up because you are not used to balancing so many requirements at once. But that's the name of the game. Luckily the more you do it, the quicker you lose the stiffness and soon a whole new world opens up with creative possibilities your random mind never would have dreamed of. You can't give up just because the stiffness discourages you. Suck it up and keep going until it becomes more natural to tell a story with drawings.
I've said it before, but I can't stress it enough: "Functional drawings" are what you need to make a cartoon. A functional drawing is a totally different animal than a sketchbook scribble.
Once you get used to doing drawings that have a purpose, other than just looking sorta keen floating on a page full of other doodles, you'll open a whole new wonderful world to yourself. You'll be performing instead of merely doodling, and performance is what entertainment is all about.Drawings on these comics were done by me, Jim Smith and Vincent Waller. Those guys also live their stories as you can see.

Take note of how George's expressions and poses move from one to the next. They connect from pose to pose in a logical way that tells the story and his emotional state at every important moment.

In the above pages, George is basically cocksure about his ability to outwit a stupid creature of nature. Most of the poses convey this, but the odd pose is an accent "That's a dirty mouth bass!"

Accents occur naturally in acting and not at random. They serve functions and tell us quick inspired emotions that burst from the characters.
If you have already become comfortable with George's construction, then the next step is to draw him performing a scene or 2 from a story.

Here are plenty of stories:

http://johnkpitch.blogspot.com/2007/10/george-liquors-cartoony-type-variety.html



Points to remember:

1) Learn how your characters are constructed first. Before you attempt to get creative with them. This is more important than anything. If you are still struggling with drawing a character even in his most basic generic state, then you won't be able to do functional drawings of him acting.

Learn the generic first, then the specific.

2) Learn the personality of the character by reading stories with him in it, or watching the cartoons.

3) Take a scene from a story that hasn't been drawn and rough out a sequence of the character (or characters) acting the scene.

I do this in rough first - storyboard style, straight ahead in continuity. I'm not trying to make finished cleaned-up drawings. I'm trying to stage the scenes and get a good performance out of the actors.

more George expressions

if you copy these, try building them up carefully with construction, so that we really feel how the forms are wrapped around the poses, and that all the shapes are interrelated.

smile affects the cheeks, cheeks affect the eyes

body flows along line of action

flesh feels like flesh, soft and meaty, stuck to the construction and pulled along the line of action

George with specific expressions

Here are some subtle George expressions. The first 3 show George in a calm self assured in his own righteousness (also called rectitude) sort of way.
The pose above adds a bit of cocksuredness.
George calm and sure of himself.
Here's George with some sympathy towards God's creatures, as long as he knows they accept their place in the cruel arbitrary order of things.

George is a multi-shaded personality. He is not always a raving, psychopath as the hippie ladies thought of him.

In order to storyboard or layout scenes with George, it's important to be able to feel his many sides. This whole page shows some similar attitudes with subtle differences of states of being.

Note that these all use the same construction as his simpler expressions. The cheeks work the same way as cheeks do in old cartoons, Preston Blair and such...the same physical mechanics applied to a specific design.

Storyboarding George Liquor- rougher, simpler drawings

You don't need to be totally "on-model" to storyboard my cartoons, but you need to capture the essence of the characters. The basic proportions and the attitudes. You can leave out details, as long as you have clear posing and acting and continuity. See how clear the silhouettes are too.

These links may help you if you are a storyboard artist and are interested in working on the show.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/12/raketu-web-page-design-and-cartoon.html


http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/12/raketu-universal-instant-messaging.html

Need Artists Soon. Can You Draw A Republican?

HOW TO CHECK YOUR COPIES:

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-3-how-to-check.html


It's been about 28 years since I first drew this guy.

Well I found a sponsor to produce 40 minutes of George Liquor cartoons. No dirty hippie ladies this time. Real men who think George will help promote a decent society of upstanding Americans.

DO YOU NEED A JOB DRAWING DECENT CARTOONS WITH POSITIVE VALUES?

I'm going to need an assortment of talent to help me. I'll do a few posts to tell you which jobs will be available and what skills I'm looking for. Today, it's storyboard and layout artists who can adapt to my style.

I won't have time to train people on the job. But I will help you learn to draw the characters on my blog.

I'll need folks like Hillary, who can sit down on day 1 and start to produce functional and entertaining cartoon scenes. If you've already worked on my cartoons, then you will have a big advantage. Anyone who can show me that they already can draw my main characters will make it much easier for me to make a show that will be successful.

The best way to learn to draw a character is to start with the head in neutral expressions, just to learn how he is built.

GEORGE IN NEUTRAL EXPRESSIONS

3/4 VIEW

Some of my characters are extra hard to draw. George especially, so I would start by just learning to construct his head in simple expressions-smiling, or just neutrality.

I'll do more posts, next George with specific expressions, then one for George's body and body poses.





I wouldn't try to draw wild poses or really specific expressions of George until you can already just draw the construction of his head. That's enough of a task by itself. Don't try to be Rod Scribner the first day.
Things to note: There is a lot of space behind George's facial features. Behind his eyes and mouth, you can see his jaw, his cranium and his neck. Many young cartoonists will cut off the cranium and neck or draw them too close to the face.

Remember that a face is at the front of the head, and there is a lot of space between your face and the back of your skull.

You also need to leave space above his eyes - between the top of the eyes and the bottom of his brush cut. That's where his eyebrows will go, and they will need some flesh space in order to move up and down to make expressions.

FRONT VIEW

PROFILE

On the profile you can see that the front of his skull is higher than the back of it. His head slopes backwards. It's very tricky to draw, but is important to his Republicanism.


If you draw this bugger, then post a link in the comments. Once I see a few folks who can draw his basic construction, I'll do a post of george with more specific expressions. Then Jimmy and Sody.

STORYBOARD STYLE VS. LAYOUT STYLE drawings

Storyboard artists don't need to draw the characters perfectly "on-model" or clean, but they do have to understand the core of the characters' look and personality.

Layout artists need to be tighter and make the continuity of poses "flippable" for the animators, but they don't need to be perfectly clean like the drawings above. Just a good pencil line that an inker can interpret.

Of course, my first choice will be professionals who have done storyboards and layouts, but who knows maybe someone out there is just a natural, who easily draws good poses and construction.

QUESTIONS?

Ask in the comments and I will try to answer.