Construction and gesture

Fooling around with perspective

...if you've ever been to this diner, you'll recognize it immediately.

LOL! It's true

Just wasting some time this morning...

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Northeast
The South
The Midland
Philadelphia
North Central
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have?Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

A pretty girl....

Today, I have to provide a link to Pete Emslie's blog The Cartoon Cave. His blog is regular reading for me and I happily (and anxiously) wait for new posts. I also own several books that Pete has illustrated . Reading that Pete teaches animation at Sheridan College, my first thought was of his students and their good fortune in being able to learn from such a talented artist. My envy was intensifying, heading toward outright jealousy when Pete's lesson "how to draw a cute girl" appeared and I got to feel like I was one of those lucky students. I watched each of the three attached videos numerous times before sitting down at the drawing table with pencils and paper. I even printed out the final drawing, keeping it handy, as a reference tool.
I started out with a blue Col-erase pencil to block in the basic shapes, refining, and adding detail,with a black Col-erase. Honestly, I wasn't as interested in producing a "perfect copy" of Pete's drawing as I was in learning how he laid down the lines that made up his "cute girl". It took quite a few attempts and I have a bag of wadded up paper balls to drop off in the recycle bin this afternoon. Finally, I used a Design Ebony pencil for the cleaned up drawing.

After scanning the drawing, I cleaned it up again in Photoshop, optimizing it so that I could import it into Toon Boom Studio and vectorize it.

big bad wolf

Spike, Butch, Generic....

Two Ducks for construction

Circles

In a nutshell, construction is based on the circle so I took 15 minutes to warm up by practicing to draw circles using my digital tablet and Corel's Painter IX.5 program.

In a September 2007 post, "John Kricfalusi" outlined the structure of a "cartoon class" emphasizing the key elements he would teach aspiring animators. It's not surprising to anyone who regularly reads John's blog , that he begins with "character construction" as the first lesson, especially since "construction" is also the first lesson in Kricfalusi's "$100,000 Animation Course". Taking John's advice seriously, I'll explore construction during October 2007 and, in doing so, I'll utilize a variety of reference material that I've collected in my "animation library". Of course, my collection includes the Preston Blair books "Animation 1" and "Cartoon Animation", they are the classics. However, I've come across many other more obscure, less well known, instructional cartoon and animation books that are just as useful and informative and I'll be referencing them, often for the sake of variety, as well. Let's get started!

Drawing Disney

Just a few doodles I whipped out of Pluto and Goofy so that I could practice construction. I also wanted to practice with both Corel Painter X and my Wacom tablet. There's more of this stuff on the drawing table.

Woo Hoo! I'm rich at last....

I received notice that I am a National Publisher's Sweepstakes Winner!!


"From the office of: Senator David MarkSenate President Federal Republic of Nigeria
RE: PAYMENT NOTIFICATION ON APPROVED ENTITLEMENT FUND(US$30,000,000.00)

Dear Sir,

This is to notify you that your over due entitlement fund has beengazetted to be released to you after the summit meeting held at theFederal Government capital territory (Abuja) in which an indoor meetingwas held between my government,International Monetary Fund (IMF), WorldBank Auditors, representatives of the European Union, Asian andAmerican Congress respectively concerning the debts owed to foreigners.
It was agreed that all the beneficiaries under the category "A" willreceive the sum of Thirty Million United StatesDollars (US$30,000,000.00) as approved and endorsed by all the parties present inthe summit. Be informed that your name was stipulated under the category"A" awaiting the receipt of his payment.Therefore, you are advised as a matter of urgency, to reconfirm thefollowing details:

YOUR FULL NAMES:...................
CORRESPONDING ADDRESS:..............
TELEPHONE / FAX NAUMBERS:............
MOBILE PHONE:.................
OCCUPATION/POSITION:.................
AGE/MARITAL STATUS................
OCCUPATION/POSITION..............

Note that if you have received this message by(electronic email sendingerror) to your system, kindly help us by informing us to enable us sortthis out as my office has been instructed by the Presidency to take theissues of the release of all payment owed to foreign beneficiaries uponherself in order to sanitize the image of this country as the present government will be handing over power to the new upcoming government come May 29th, 2007 andthis government will not want to leave without the settlement of all debts as agreed / endorsed by the parties involved. It will interest you to know that as soon as we receive the above details, we will commence with all needed necessary legal procedures and issue all payments details to you, in order to approve the release of your long over due entitlement fund, as our government wants to rebuild confidence in International Cooperation and International Financial system.I want you to understand that this arrangement supersedes all theprevious arrangements given to you. Nevertheless, if we do not hear from youwithin the next seven (7) working days from today, it shall attractindefinite postponement of your payment and my government will not beblamed for such action, any question should be directed to this office. The federal government of Nigeria is sorry for any inconvenience the delay in releasing your entitlement fund must have caused you as a result of unprofessional services rendered by the banking and financial institutes and that is our aim of objective.

Best Regards,Senator David Mark (FEDEREL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA)"

Step One: just a sketch

Long Time, No See!