Drawing Hands..

Hands were my least favorite thing to draw. I simply hated them, and I was so awful at drawing them. I found them an immense challenge, but I also realized how vital they are to an expressive drawing.. so I taught myself how to draw them. Now they are my favorite thing to draw. I've found that if you concentrate on learning the thing that challenges you most, it very often becomes you're specialty.
Let's start with why I sucked in the first place, it goes back to Preston Blair's designs and pretty much the traditional "cartoon" hand.. studying designs like this will only lead to bad habits and a lack of anatomical understanding. Instead, I would study Milt Kahls hands for Merlin in "Sword and the Stone", (great collection from the film above) .Milt managed to find a perfect blend of cartoon and anatomical design.. interesting side note, the hands in "Iron Giant" are also a great study. My buddy Randy Meyers told me that the Sword in stone designs for Wart were a huge influence on Hogarth.

From there, I would suggest looking at how the great illustrators rendered hands. Leyendecker's studies are filled with beautifully illustrated, and dynamic hands.
There are several books, most out of print, that are amazing as well. I would suggest the little green manual titled "How to Draw Hands" by Oliver Senior. It can be hard to find though. It was first published in the 40's. This series of books includes a lot of other great little "how to's", everything from drawing cats to wild flowers, no joke. My favorite is "How to Draw Fishing Crafts". so random!
Furthermore.. Some of my colleagues like Burne Hogarth's "Drawing Dynamic Hands" (above).. However, I find it to be too stylized, I think I learned more about how to draw tree trunks and vines with this book... hence very difficult to learn from, but others swear by it.

Perhaps the most effective way I learned was to sit down and draw a solid page of hands in my sketchbook. I'm talking 50-75 hands per page.. make as many mistakes as you can, just repeat. I also think it helps to draw in ink, makes you commit to the line and draw quicker over all, which is of course very useful to an animator.

Perspective and Motion control to create the illusion of scale differences...

I have a love hate thing going on with digital. I know I need it it my life, but I also hate the dependency it creates. I have this romantic notion of an animator just drawing.. needing the minimal equipment necessary to put exhibit the final film.  I came across this excellent technique the other day in a link a friend sent me (watch the video below!), no digital used!  Good stuff on how they did the scale difference with the Hobbits.

The idea is that you put one actor really far from the camera and the other one really close to the camera, then shoot at such an angle that it appears they are next to each other and that one of them is really big and the other really small. Which sounds simple, until you realize that you need to build everything on the set so that the actors can interact with it at the same time while hiding the fact that they're far away from each other. The simplest example is with Gandalf's cart. In the movie, you see them sitting side by side ...

but the real cart is built so that if the camera is stuck in that spot, it hides the fact that Frodo is actually sitting about four feet behind Gandalf, with Ian McKellen's body hiding where the bench is split:

But the complication comes when you realize that this works only if the camera remains perfectly still. So any shot where the camera moves around has to involve a computer, right? Nope. In scenes like this one, where they share a table ...

... they are actually sitting at two different tables, one human-sized and one hobbit-sized ...

that are made in such a way that each piece slowly turns with the camera, so that the whole time, they appear to be one simple table, shifting with the perspective of the viewer. This required that the camera be put on a motion-control rig and half of the set be put on another rig that counteracts the movement of the camera. So when the shot moved, the set, props and even the actors moved accordingly (yes, while McKellen was trying to stay in character as Gandalf, he was on a stool that was slowly scooting him around the room).

A rad art thing to brighten up your day...

This is pretty cool...

Raymond Lemstra..

Great stuff from artist Raymond Lemstra, in his own words...

"With my work I like to refer to the illustrative nature of primitive drawings and sculptures. What I find interesting about these is the distortion as a result of selective emphasis; parts of interest are emphasized, unimportant parts reduced or left out. For characters this means they come out big headed, where focus is on the face and the body is trimmed to its essential properties. I deliberately apply this primitive logic as a method. But I don't apply it equally to all aspects of my work. Instead, I choose to use a very mature, highly laboursome technique for the execution of my work. This contrast, between the naive and sophisticated, gives the work a somewhat awkward taste. A clash of intent, simultaniously assuming simplicity and complexity, randomness and reason, flaws and perfection. The purpose of which is to inspire a sense of joy and discovery"  -Raymond Lemstra

Mexican Street art by ROA..

Some cool stuff coming out of Mexico. ROA makes some insane images. Enjoy.

Fran Krause "Nosy Bear"..

Nice little short by animator and Calarts professor, Fran Krause.  Simplicity is king.


also, he includes a great "making of" which is filled with some great info on his technique.

Animation 101: Blood and Posture.. are motion lines necessary?

"I don't use action lines to describe what is happening in the frame; I use blood and posture to tell the viewer what is happening" -Gibbens (of "Watchmen")

Another epic blog entry from Mark. It's something I think about all the time, and I happen to lean toward the NO action lines especially in animation. I hate that I've used them in the past, they added practically nothing to the action. "Blood and Posture" may just be my new tag line. i'm using my own drawings from my films as examples, you'll have to forgive me, i just have no immediate other examples at hand, and I love talking about my own discoveries, errors, etc.
Above I used action lines in "Puppet" to punch up this key that was exposed on ones. Now that I look at it, it didn't add anything, i should have left it out.
Above, I think I did well, some animators would use a "wipe" effect by elongating this exposure (again on ones) but it looks better with the more realistic "stretch" of the sock being thrown down, as well as a nice drag from the hair and sleeve.
Above, directly after the SMACK, I think I used the saliva coming off the kids mouth as a "Blood and Posture" move, eliminating any action lines, and only using goober to leave a motion trail, and also again the direction is aided by the drag on the hair, as well as the puppets little hands. This was a fun scene to animate.

 

Similar use of saliva.. Above from "Masks" the trail of slobber reflects the arc of the head and mouth as the character catches the little dude in it's mouth. Also, a slight blur helped the realism.

Dangit... above is another one... what's wrong with me?? this one had no reasoning behind it.. I think sometimes I put them in when i'm working on 1's because i think it goes by so quick. Also, sometimes they creep in from my roughs, when I'm establishing the arc.

Above: I even see they crept in within the rough lines of this one also from "Puppet", again, probably rough lines from mapping an arc.

Above: from "Masks", I did this right. No motion lines, even though this still is from some VERY extreme action shot on 1's.  Instead I relied on solid drag and cohesive drawing (or "posture") of the figures.  My point is, if you draw it correctly, there is no need for any effect lines. However, in "Masks", I often used subtle motion blurs when things are moving fast, which punches up realism, unlike action lines, which only serve to make it cartoony.
Here's another one above, and I think this is unforgivable.  You see the VERY NEXT FRAME has debris (read "blood") that made the action quite clear enough.. no lines were needed. moral of this... stick to the real world for your references... there's no motion lines in reality!  Hope you enjoyed this analysis.. please let me know if you agree or disagree. It seems every film I do I learn an absurd amount about movement and animation, and I love to share my discoveries, small or big. -Patrick

Charles Bargue drawing course...

Reposting this due to request:
Charles Bargue (1826-1883) created what is probably the most influential and famous series of drawing classes in history. The legendary coursework was created in collaboration with his teacher and mentor, Jean-Léon Gérôme. The book "Charles Bargue, Drawing Course" is probably the best investment a student or pro alike could make, right next to "Illusion of Life". The artwork contained within the book can only be described as stunning and awakening!! it will remind you of the rich history we artists must face if we have the slightest desire to contribute. we truly are tiny specks standing on the shoulder of Colossus! I especially like the ref. to greek art, it's amazing that this type of perfection and craftsmanship was accomplished thousands of years ago. furthermore, the bulk of the book is made up of line studies of figures, especially useful to an animator.

Unfinished Audrey Kawasaki's..

I will forever be amazed with unfinished, rough or raw work. This is why I love pencil tests so much.. you can really see the process and the "soul" behind the creation. Enjoy these "in progress" paintings on wood by Kawaskaki. Still can't get enough of her delicate hands and flowing contours! Happy sunday everyone.

Animation Backgrounds Blog

Every now and then I stop into Animation Backgrounds Blog by Rob Richards. There's always some nice gems waiting for me. He posted some epic winter bg's from Bambi the other day.. I'm so fascinated at the skill and spirit of these paintings.. and I then I realize I've been on his blog for an hour, devouring these amazing works of art, so head over at your own risk;)

EKUNDAYO for this Wednesday...

Ekundayo is a great artist. The more of his imagery I flip through the more I get an appreciation for his distinct graphic graffiti style. I often tell my students not to worry about the entire drawing.. some areas will just kind of figure themselves out. If you look at any classic animator, their drawings are filled with invisible lines that the viewers eye just fills in. Ekundayo is a great example of someone who takes advantage of our eyes tendency to do this to an extreme. Below is one of my favorites.. it works despite over half the drawing missing. weird right? Ekundayo has quite an interesting bio as well, give it and a slew of other images a view over at Thinkspace. Later wussies.

More influences.. Nic Klein

Okay, to be honest this semi-pervy image below is what caught my eye.. but then i dug up a lot more stuff of Nic's that I like..
I'm not sure what's going on, i'm not typically impressed by sexy comic book style design, or comic book stuff in general, but lately i'm just digging it! Nic Klein combines a subtle painterly style to his illustrations that really works well... There's also some decent elements of motion/time features within his drawings (ie below) Also, some of the content is beyond plain interesting.. (yeah.. that works). The very often violent imagery tells some crazy stories. Dig.

Tissa David notes on Asterisk...

Richard over at Asterisk has posted some great notes from animation master Tissa David (bio via michael sporn). When I first moved to New York, and was desperately trying to teach myself animation, Tissa's notes were legend.. she taught me a lot about the basics of movement. I specifically remember her saying that a droplet is round.. i had never considered it being anything else but a tear drop shape, but it's only that shape when it's hanging onto something. very obvious, but when you're starting out it helps to have someone point out these things:)