Lesson 2: Squash and Stretch, Part 2

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 2

Here are the second half of my squash and stretch dogs copied from Preston Blair's book. As before, the Blair originals are red, my roughs are blue and my finals are black.

I don't have a lot of time in my life to work on these, but I look forward to what chances I get. This post only finishes Lesson 2 and I've been started these lessons in May! But I'm doing each drawing as carefully and attentively as I can. And although I still have a long way to go, I've noticed significant improvement and I'm pretty jazzed about that.

I now feel like I'm really seeing and experiencing the three-dimensional shape in the Blair drawing. Before, when I would copy the drawing, I could only see the relationships between the 2D lines. But now I see it in 3D and 2D at the same time. I also just feel more confident, and I think my lines look more expressive and less hesitant/choppy than before. It's a great feeling.

I noticed something about these dogs after getting about half-way through (only a beginner like me would take so long to notice): All of these dogs show squash and stretch not just in the vertical direction, with the jaw, but in all kinds of wonderful sideways stretches. For example, the one immediately below is really very twisted. The cranium is turned at almost a 3/4 view while the muzzle is pointing almost at the viewer. It gives the impression the dog is turning away and his fat sloppy muzzle is dragging behind. Great fun!

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