Maintain Guts

By the way I have an idea on how to share some of these animation clips with you guys

to make some user-generated mashups of silly scenes to music lines

any music you like

all the animation is timed to beats and even the dialogue is rhythmic - it sounds as bouncy backwards as forwards

You could make some fun loops I'll bet

maybe I'll start a youtube channel if anyone's interested in creating some good beats with cartoon accompaniment.

Mr. 23 is coming in tomorrow to take a whack at it.

whattaya think? 

Ernie Models To Print

 These have some general tips that can apply to all characters...see the labels for general construction of faces and how to use space and organic forms.

Some of these drawings may look anarchic but they still have to obey some general drawing principles in order to be effective.

One of the hardest concepts my artists have to learn is to make funny asymmetrical drawings - that still look like they are wrapped in flesh and stuffed with cartilage and teeth.

Many cartoonists have been conditioned to believe that construction consists of perfectly even, symmetrical circles and ovals - all arranged on a mathematical grid. So when they translate gutsy storyboard or animation drawings to layout or cleanups, they tend to even everything out and make the characters look like flat robots - or traced model sheets.

Hopefully these tips might help avoid that.

A REALLY IMPORTANT CONCEPT TO REMEMBER: 

CHEEKS, SMILE AND EYES 

ARE ALL CONNECTED FORMS!

Your mouth smiles because the cheek squeezes and pulls it up. When it moves up it also can effect the bottom of the eye shapes. Almost everyone seems to have trouble grasping this. There should be a whole course in this in animation schools I think.

 

http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/

Inking Tips: UNDERSTAND the drawing before you ink it

Here's a swell pencil drawing of Ernie by Jim Smith. Jim is very good at suggesting form even with rough sketches. If the drawings aren't carefully cleaned up or inked, they can easily flatten out and lose their impact. So it's important to analyze a drawing before you start inking. The first thing is to note how the biggest forms are constructed and how they relate to each other in dimension and position.
It's also a very good practice to connect the cranium to the body with the neck - even when you don't see the neck because it is behind the chin.
A lot of artists have problems understanding the relation between the cheeks and the smile lines. the line at the top of a cheek and the line underneath that describes the smile are 2 borders of a piece of meat that you use to make expressions. They should look like they make a form that points to the nostril.
More to come...

The Mouth Area

In reality, the mouth area seems monstrously complicated. All the details flow in and out of each other and are intricately connected.
It's a far cry from the TV style "realistic" flat floating mouths. Whatever is appealing about real life is totally lost when translated into animation.Anime mouths go out of their way to exist completely independently of the heads they are supposed to be part of, which is kinda funny.
I'm trying to take all the wrinkles, muscles, details and break them down into the most basic forms.

The more wrinkly or muscly someone is, the more complex and difficult it is to keep track of what wrinkle attaches to what crease or muscle.

Lips and Mouth Accessories

Hierarchy 2 - The Facial Expression in broad strokes

You might look at a drawing like this and think that it's complicated because there so many lines and wrinkles. But if you understand form and hierarchy, you can easily make sense of it all.

I'll start with a simpler expression:
Once you have your basic composition and attitudes in mind and everything roughly constructed, the next most important thing is the facial expression. It should read easily, non-ambiguously and tell the story. Here George is happy and eager in anticipation of what surprise food is in his mystery can. The boys are just as eager and show a little more innocence in their expressions.

It's important to place your expression around the same construction you drew for the overall shape and position of the head. Otherwise the expression won't seem part of the head. It will just float in front of it as if it exists on a separate plane.

Then the facial features themselves (like every other part of a drawing) should have their own forms. George's eyes bug out and so they have to be carefuly drawn. Many cartoon characters (like Slab N' Ernie) have eyes that are just drawn flat against their skulls. That's OK too, if the eyes wrap around the skull shapes in perspective. Like these:I see lots of modern cartoons where the eyes exist in different planes and spatial positions than the heads they are supposed to be part of and that's wrong. It hurts to look at too. I remember when Nickelodeon did their versions of Ren and Stimpy, the good drawing flew out the window, and they just became abstract flat characters. Then that style (not mine) influenced a hundred cartoons that came after. Weird for weird sake instead of weird feelings tightly controlled by the artists.

In each of these drawings, the expressions are clear, and they wrap around the head shapes.

Next: adding details that follow the positions of the forms they help describe.