Lesson 6: Katie Rice's Funny Cute Faces

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 6

This was so much fun. But not at all easy.

It probably goes without saying: the red drawings below are Katie's originals. The black are mine.

Katie's drawings look like they were made in a matter of seconds. I wish I could dash them off nearly as easy! But it's hard to copy something exactly.

I love that face, above.

Although Katie's drawings look very rough, there's no doubt that every line she draws is exactly the right shape and in the right place to suggest the three-dimensional character in an appealing way.

I hate when I straighten things out and even things up, like I did with the girl on the left -- losing some of the fun and appeal. (Although even with my meddling, the design still has plenty of appeal.)

I really wanted to nail the one of the left above, because she's adorable.

I'm so amazed how big a difference just a fraction of an inch can make in placing a line. It seems to change the whole personality. Even when I thought I'd copy it well, if my drawing looked like a different person, I just had to start over.

I didn't really understand the drawing on the left, so I had trouble reproducing it.

I made a lot of the faces a bit wider than Katie did. That's one reason hers look more glamorous!

Well, I'm no great designer, but I can say I know all about stick-out mouths.

Champion of Justice

Waste of time or not, here is less than a second of frames that I copied from "Champion of Justice." This is an animated gif, and it runs a little slow.

This "extra credit" project was based on ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 5 and JohnK's follow-up post, which has a link to the longer silhouette sequence.

I just thought, "If I'm spending so much time copying all these drawings from Preston Blair and other old cartoons, I might as well try drawing a sequence of frames."

I probably paid too much attention to copying the silhouette and not enough to trying to imagine the underlying construction.

There's really an underlying contradiction in animated cartoons, isn't there? On the one hand, you want these free, loose, fun, wild, expressive, cartoony drawings, and on the other hand, your figure has to move believably in three dimensions and show believable weight and volume -- all of which require a technical mastery. Art plus science!

Lesson 5, Part 5 (conclusion)

Here's the last of the drawings that I'm copying from JohnK's Lesson 5.

Good grief! What was I doing with that muzzle?

I made three attempts at Tink; always had a problem stretching her out along her line of action.

Wart is pretty good. The only error I see I that I made his face slightly too wide. (This was all just by eye.)