John K Stuff: August 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Crystal

BGS: Layout, Color Key, Finished Painting

I wanted my Yogis to have some feeling of the original 195-1960 cartoons. I didn't want them to be like the 1970s, an 80s redos where the characters try to be be with the times. No cleaning up the environment or riding skateboards - and no pink purple and lime green airbrushed bgs. I got Ed Benedict to do some of the background layouts and design and he drew them in pretty much the style he drew in the 1950s. Trying to get the painting style down was tougher.

Here's a beautiful painting - I think by Richard Daskas that is sort of half Ren and Stimpy style, half early Hanna Barbera. It wasn't until Boo Boo Runs Wild that I thought we got the finished BG style to look like the Art Lozzi/ Montealegre techniques I so admire.

Here's my key. This is from a scene that was cut from Ranger Smith's Day In The Life for time. It had RS inspecting the underwater world and making sure the fish were obeying the rules of the scummy lake bottom. Even scum has to have rules and order in Smith's world.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Marker Color Keys

I often do marker color keys of scenes to give my painters. I can't paint, so markers are easy for me to dash out.

They tend to fade in color over the years though, and I had a heck of a time trying to get the colors to scan right. They also look different on every computer screen I checked, so who knows what colors you'll see.

This one is from my Bjork video and the colors here look much less saturated than in the original. I tried 2 adjustments and neither one is exactly right.

Makes it hard to discuss color theories.
More to come...

I found some BG color keys and one BG from a cut scene from Day in The Life of Ranger Smith if anyone wants to see them.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Heart Throbs

Saturday, August 28, 2010

UFC 118 Tonight

They are marketing it as boxing VS MMA.

I can't wait to see what happens. Lots of other great matchups too.

http://www.ufc.com/event/UFC118

Striving For Accuracy

I wasn't satisfied with my last Beebers; I knew there were subtleties I was missing, so I looked closer to try to figure out what I wasn't capturing.

And I came up with this.

Here are some more "serious" studies of celebrity childs and magazine people.

This stuff busts my brain.

But I think it's slowly paying off.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Beautiful Beeb

Girls, calm your poor hearts...

I sort of applied what I remembered from drawing gym shoes the other day.

Beautiful People 27

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Stiff Warm Ups and Studies

I am slowly, painstakingly trying to beat new information into my brain.

2 things I have been working on are facial structure and legs - with attention to balanced poses and how they work. Like many cartoonists, my eye lies to me a lot and I naturally draw things out of proportion.

I think I am just beginning to understand how the major facial muscles and features interrelate with each other. The curves all weave in and out of each other in an organized, logical pattern. For example, the cheek starts under the eye socket, puffs out and then weaves into the smile, then reverses direction and aims into the top of the chin under the lip. I have been faking it for decades, as many cartoonists do. One day I might actually do it from memory where it makes some sense.

I missed it in the drawings below.

Legs Feet Balance

Another mystery that has plagued me forever, is how to draw natural and balanced female poses. It seems an immense and complex problem. Just drawing a leg or a foot in even one position is difficult, but then to understand how they look from every angle, and in what degree of tension...

I find that it's not enough to just draw and copy things. I have to try to understand the why of what things look like. Otherwise I am just making superficial copies of a specific pose without being able to draw other poses later.

So when I am copying, I look for knowledge and understanding. Not just the specific shapes I am copying, but the general forms and relationships causing the specific shapes. I try to find things that make some sense and then write them down in the hopes I remember them and can put them to use later.

I don't have the greatest memory, so I have to do lots and lots of drawings, studies and analysis. I need my own personal tutor who'll fix all my drawings and tel me exactly what's wrong with them and correct them in front of me.

I envy the artists who seem to understand the sense of anatomy and perspective through instinct and feeling. There aren't many. Frank Frazetta's one of them. He has some otherwordly gift. - Owen Fitzgerald's another. These two artists don't just copy and repeat stock cartoon shapes and poses; they customize every pose and angle to the scene.

I'm not sure why I want to know all this stuff. There are many famous cartoonists who had successful careers and made entertaining cartoons without ever doing natural poses - even cartoonists who are renowned for their human drawings - like Al Capp and Milton Caniff. Don't get me wrong; they are both talented storytellers and stylists, but like many cartoonists - stiff.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Owen Fitzgerald Dennis Christmas trees

Level 1: Overall Tree Shape- Green bent triangle
Level 2: Tree trunk and branches structure, inside green shape
Level 3: Sub branches coming off horizontal branches
Level 4: Needles coming off sub-branches

Each of the levels is following the shape and direction - and line of action of the level above. Every detail fits within the overall scheme

Very artistically clever