Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Most Important 80s Rule

"Fat Albert Surprised"



This is from a Filmation layout manual but it represents the philosophy of every 80s cartoon studio that I worked at. Boy the requirements to be a layout artist sound hard!

That sounds like you'd have to go to art school in France for 10 years before you can get a job at Filmation.

And here's how they want you to apply all those skills

This instruction means: only use 2 poses for dialogue. A front or 3/4 view. That's it. That way you can keep the rest of the drawing completely still- and don't forget to trace it! But be creative like the manual says.
Be creative, but make sure if you make a radical "extreme change" like evening out the arms above, that you get official permission from the foreman.
Test: name each of their emotions.

Thanks to Jeremy for uploading the whole giant manual. There are more gifts of wisdom in it.