Forcing New Information To Stick In The Brain

I copied a couple of my HB Rubber toys to see what I could glean for future use. (HB characters make the best toys)
I took two characters and turned them to see what general characteristics they had in common,
and what features were specific to the particular design of each. Whatever they had in common might tell me about what happens to cartoon faces when rotated - and more, what happens when toys of cartoon faces turn in space. It's even more 3d than a model sheet turnaround.

TESTING MY MEMORY

A couple days later, I tested myself to see if I actually learned anything. Could I reproduce anything I studied? If not, then the study would be for naught.
I also wanted to know not just how to reproduce superficially something visual that I memorized - but more important, did I understand what I supposedly learned? The eye copies what something looks like on the surface, but it takes the brain to comprehend it. That's the trickier part for me. Why does something look the way it does? - not just what does it look like?

crappy one

CHECKING, REDRAWING, CORRECTING BAD MEMORY

I absorbed some of what I studied, but not completely, so I went back and drew the toy again, this time trying to get a more accurate copy and to ram the info into my brain.

Could I make a drawing that feels like a toy and not just a 2 dimensional drawing of the characters as they appear in cartoons? I'd have to have an understanding of what makes a character look like a toy.

I tried drawing toy versions of toys that don't exist to test my understanding.

They aren't exaggerated enough yet to satisfy my goal.

Plastic Toys Have Seams

Then I tried drawing what the characters might look like as plastic toys, which have their own unique properties.

WHY ISN'T THERE A BOO BOO RUBBER TOY??: MY SUGGESTION

It is my opinion that study and drawing practice is a good thing - but only if you force yourself to try to understand what you are studying - and then to apply it to original drawings that aren't copies of something right in front of your face.

Some day Bill and Joe will call from Heaven and let me design a bunch of Hanna Barbera toys - and in the wrong colors. Then all my studies will have had a noble purpose.

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.

Beautiful Beeb

Girls, calm your poor hearts...
I sort of applied what I remembered from drawing gym shoes the other day.

Application Of Studies

Some people might wonder what the point is in copying the drawings of others. I'll tell you. It's so you can apply what you learned from the copies to your own drawings. It's not just so you can be good at copying.
Geneva has been studying the work of Harvey Eisenberg and copying his original poses and scenes.
She got very good at these straight copies so I suggested she go to the next step. ...to take one of those scenes and make up her own poses of the character within the same scene. Add some poses that suggest a continuity- a bit of story business.

So she used the same construction and line of action techniques from the Preston Blair lessons and created 2 original poses in sequence of the original scene.

HOW TO STAGE AND POSE CHARACTERS
The poses are well constructed, have clear silhouettes and seem to tell a story - even without dialogue. The fox here is listening for the splash of the character he just kicked into the well.
Then he runs off and seems to be saying" I know! Now I'll get some oil and pour it on the little bugger!"

Geneva is now doing what I call "functional drawings" - drawings that have a purpose and tell a story. That's what it's all about. It's the final goal. Once you are at that point you just continue to learn new things and keep adding them to your storytelling functional drawings and you get better and better.

She started her learning process by studying the basics and step by step learned how to use the principles of good cartooning and staging by copying the works of accomplished skilled cartoonists who really knew what they were doing.

Learning how others did stuff is a good way to propel yourself to the point where you can do good stuff.

http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/

LEARN YOUR BASIC CARTOON TOOLS FIRST

I have seen many people become good at copying, but then never think to apply what they learned to their own drawings. Applying something from what you study tests you to see if you actually understood what you copied.

The Stiff Period to the Fluid Period. No Balls on Balls

I'll get to the Popeye toy real soon, but first to set it up.
here is another sample of a lesson from the mysterious secret cartoon college:I suggest (if you don't already) supplementing your cartoon studies with some life drawing. (I know this is a photo, not a live model)

Why should you?

Because when studying Preston Blair type construction - made of spheres and pear shapes, there is a tendency for some cartoonists to think cartoon characters are made up of balls piled on top of each other. Or they draw the balls and pears too mechanical and not organic enough.

Also another point: THE STIFF PERIOD OF LEARNING
Any time you learn a new concept or drawing skill, when you actually first try to draw it you will probably be very stiff, because you haven't practiced the concept enough for it to sink in. This is the tough period of learning anything.

Drawing 1 - STIFF, study drawing. Slow and careful, grinding my teeth

When I first drew this guy, I slowly, carefully blocked in the construction first - having to think about the types of shapes that make up a strong man. I couldn't use balls and pears because real life is made up of more complex parts. They are still solid forms, but bendable solid forms. They are complex organic forms.

Once I finished the first drawing, I knew a lot of things I didn't know before: How the traps are shaped on one side compared to the other in a 3/4 pose. What biceps look like from 2 different angles in relaxed mode. How the biceps fit next to the triceps and the space between.

How muscles weave in and out of each other under the skin. The feeling of flesh, not just the wooden proportions of man.

How the 6 pack works as a whole unit before it's split into parts

How big pecs hang in repose (it's very important to know this, especially for you girls)

etc.

Drawing 2 - Looser yet still solid, more organic and confident, more fun to domy conservative attempt at Chloe's style

Then I redrew the drawing faster and looser - while still trying to keep all the forms solid, but to make them less stiff, more flowing: more ORGANIC

Some artists go too far in the direction of organic lines and get wobbly formless characters. I actually really like this one below. It's very funny. Some artists are too stiff and draw mechanical characters.Ever see those Gene Deitch Tom and Jerrys made in the 60s in eastern europe? They are a total misunderstanding of the 40s American animation style. The characters are drawn stiff and move stiffly. They look like they are made of badly drawn balls stacked on top of each other. Here's a weird combination of wobbly and stiff at the same time. That's an achievement! Whenever anyone draws Tom and Jerry now, they give them these bulbous balls for toes that they never had in the original cartoons.

The trick to good drawing is to combine solidity with fluidity. And life.

You have to look at both sides of an object (say a bicep) and draw the whole form, not two lines on either side. Look at the form inside the lines.

I made a mistake in my muscleman drawing above that I warn everyone else about: the side of the man's head that is closer to us (on the right) is too cramped. I squashed the space between his face and cranium. Lots of us have that problem.

Preston Blair Forms don't work for everything!
I saw one student's attempt at caricatures and he was trying to construct them as if they were Preston Blair forms.

That doesn't work.

When you draw from life- DRAW WHAT YOU SEE

Don't try to impose what you think things are supposed to look like. We aren't made of balls and pears. Only old animated cartoon characters are because those kinds of forms are easier to tun in space and they provide a simple foundation for many other concepts and principles.

What you learn from drawing from life and using your eyes to observe new things can then be applied to your cartoon drawings in simplified form.

Very Organic and Solid Preston Blair FormsThese drawings are not remotely realistic. They have no real anatomy. They are entirely made up of animated cartoon forms - spheres and pears. Yet they don't look mechanical and they are full of life. They aren't balls piled on top of each other.
Here it is done wrong: 1980 Tom and Jerry at Filmation, Balls on balls. A complete misunderstanding of the 40s style. We used to laugh and cry at these model sheets at the same time when working on these cartoons. (Thanks to Tom Minton for saving these hilarious monstrosities)



These Eisenberg characters are much more convincing as life forms, even though they have no literal realistic anatomy.

That's because they obey some principles of reality. They are organic and solid at the same time. Asymmetrical in a natural way. They have weight. They are not robotic.

See how the arms wrap around that log? They are flattened at the bottom, but bulge out at the top where they are not being compressed against anything. That makes sense and makes the drawing believable and alive.You can really feel this drawing of Tom smashing into the log. It makes sense. It isn't random distortion. (His belly is accidentally painted wrong; that's why he looks skinny at first.)

It's organic and solid at the same time - and obeys some expected sense of physics.

Don't draw stiff (except when learning and you can't help it). Don't draw wobbly. Aim at drawing convincing solid organic life.

SOLID, YET PLIABLE OR "ORGANIC"

Here's the goal - to make your own poses

There is a purpose to copying good cartoon drawings: it's not just to be able to make a good copy of something that's already been done.It's to learn the underlying principles and procedures that went into the good drawings you copy.

These are good copies, because they use the same procedure that the original artist did.

If you truly understand the underlying tools of good cartoon drawing, then you should be able to make your own poses using characters you have learned to copy well.

John studied and drew the comics above (and more of my exercise suggestions) and then tried his hand at creating his own poses of the characters:
These tell me that he didn't merely copy by eye. He used his head to figure out how the drawings were achieved. He learned the principles and then applied them to his own creativity.
This I think is missing in cartoon schools, especially when it comes to life drawing classes. The schools encourage you to do certain exercises - like life drawing, but don't encourage you to learn anything from them that you can apply to your own drawings.

Some people are good at copying things that are in front of them, but are lost at making original drawings look good.


John is doing the exact right thing. After you learn something through study and copying, then APPLY what you learned to your own poses. It helps to use characters that you have already learned to draw from the copies, not to design your own - because your own designs may have built in flaws.