Sheridan College Animation Industry Day.

Yesterday was the annual Industry Day at Sheridan College in which representatives from various national and international animation studios gather to watch a screening of our grad students' animated films. Mark Mayerson has just written up a great overview of the event itself and, though I left the following comment on his site, I'm going to reprint it here on my blog too:

I'd have to concur that this was a particularly strong year in both the 4th Year personal films and the 3rd Year group films. I may be a bit blunt in my assessment, but I feel that last year's crop of 4th Year films included far too many Flash produced efforts with little more than moving graphics. Many of them were very good in terms of storytelling and filmmaking skills, but were frankly disappointing in terms of character animation.

This year was a pleasant surprise for me, as I feel that the majority of 4th Year students really aspired to more personality based, full character animation. Though there were some very impressive CG films, I'll admit I'm still biased in favour of hand drawn animation and I found much to like this year. The highlights for me were Andrew Ferguson's "The Street Magician" and Matt Kalinauskas' "Two by Two", both of which showed great flair for cartoony design; Melissa Maduro's "A Romance in Graphite" and Marion Coffey's "The Little Colour Thief", both showing simple elegance and charm in their appealing, fluid character animation; and of course, Vlad Kooperman's very impressive "C Block", which I know received a very positive reaction from everyone in the theatre. And these are just a few of the better ones, as there were many other notable films I enjoyed very much.

All in all, a very impressive and entertaining screening yesterday at Sheridan, and I think the graduating students should be very proud of their achievements. I look forward to seeing great work from them onscreen in the years to come and I'll always have fond memories of working with them in my class back in their 2nd Year.

Mouse Doodles

Sometimes it seems I'm happiest when drawing "throwaway art" - that is, cartoons for non-commercial, usually trivial reasons. These sketches of a mouse were done on the spur of the moment as a way to brighten up and add a bit of humour to an otherwise rather dry looking assignment sheet for the Character Design class I teach at Sheridan. There was some spare room on the sheet and I decided to fill it creatively. My only regret is not filling the available area more ideally, having left a lot of open air space around each pose. Maybe I'll juggle the elements a bit for more visual appeal before assigning this one next year.

This particular assignment has to do with "Performance", and involves the students choosing any two of the characters they've designed for me previously this year and having them act out two little scenarios I provide in a total of six poses apiece. The three pose example of the mouse is my way of showing them what I expect of their efforts in regards to drawings that communicate a story visually, showing distinct expressions and body language to indicate what the character is thinking and feeling at each stage of the scenario. I know my students have been overwhelmed with the cumulative amount of work involved in the assignments from all of their various animation classes. Despite this daunting workload, my hope is always that they have some fun in my character assignments, as that sense of fun usually can be seen in the final work, resulting in real entertainment value for the viewer.

The Cartoon Caveman At Work...

This past week at Sheridan College, two of my current 2nd Year students, Amir Avni and Mitch Kennedy, asked if I would do an on-camera demonstration of how I take a drawing from initial rough gesture through to the final sketch. It was all very spontaneous and we set up in the classroom right after I'd finished this week's lesson to their group. In a matter of minutes the camera was set up on the tripod looking down over my left shoulder and I started sketching away, keeping a stream of consciousness commentary going all the while I was working. Hopefully this will illustrate the ongoing thought process I experience as I am working out a drawing. By the way, I apologize for the initial stage where I am gesturing in quite lightly in blue pencil on the paper. What I didn't realize at the time was that it was just too light for the camera to pick up. However, once I start working out the basic forms on top of the scribbled gesture, you can make out more clearly what I am doing. As for the chosen subject matter, let's just say that there's nothing more appealing to me than doodling a cute gal!

Again, my sincere thanks to Amir and Mitch for coming up with this idea, as it really was quite fun to do and I am actually quite flattered that they asked me. Please be sure to also check out their blogs to see a sampling of what these clever students of mine can do themselves:

Amir Avni
Mitch Kennedy

Pete Emslie1- Gesture and construction
Uploaded by toonamir

Pete Emslie2- Sculpting on paper
Uploaded by toonamir

Pete Emslie3- Line weight
Uploaded by toonamir

The finished sketch. By the way, if this were an actual assignment, I would lay a fresh sheet of paper on top of this and refine the drawing much more before inking it.

What's My Line?

Again I am going to use John Kricfalusi's blog as a springboard to my topic today. John has been posting art notes that he'd written to hopefully ensure that the studios he was working with overseas would adhere to the correct design style of his show. You can read his post here. I believe what he is talking about in regard to linework relates to what I had also talked about in a Character Design class I gave just a couple of weeks ago to my Sheridan students. Since we rely on lines to a huge extent in cartoon art, the types of lines employed should actually mean something. To illustrate what I am getting at, here are the visual notes I drew for my class:

There really aren't many perfectly straight lines in nature - as they are mostly of human invention, found in machinery, architecture, etc. However, straight lines help to convey rigidity and firmness of form, whether something is absolutely solid or not. Straight lines also denote tension, such as the tautness of a rope pulled tightly, flesh stretched tight over the bone, or the creases in a freshly pressed suit and pants.

The 'C' curve travels in one direction and is mostly employed to show fullness of form. It can portray soft, pudgy flesh and the puffiness of fur. Anything that is inflated with air or bloated with liquid tends to round out into 'C' curves. The effect you can create when using them on humans or animals can also result in personality types that are friendly or comical. (Think of all of the rounded puffy forms on a circus clown, for example.)

The 'S' Curve is a curve that starts out in one direction then changes and curves in the other direction. This type of line is very prevalent in nature and is used to show rhythmic gracefulness of form. Animals that we consider very elegant in their structure, like cats and many types of birds, have flowing forms full of 'S' Curves. And of course an attractive female figure is loaded with them too! Many things in nature also move in 'S' Curve patterns, such as seaweed undulating with the current, a figure skater or ballet dancer, or a squirrel bounding up and down through the grass. A snake has to travel in 'S' Curves, its body pushing off from side to side through complex muscular contractions in order to propel itself forward.

From the examples above, I hope you can get a sense of what type of line will best suggest the desired form. Though I have deliberately used a preponderance of each individual type of line in the respective examples to exaggerate my point, a good drawing should ideally comprise a variety of linework stressing all three types of line. This not only helps to convey the correct form, but also creates visual variety, which is more pleasing to the viewer's eye, ultimately helping to engage their interest. This still of Shere Khan the tiger, from Disney's "The Jungle Book", has a nice variety of straight lines and curves that suggest exactly what the form is.

Here's an example from TV animation that still illustrates the principle of well-chosen lines to convey form. There are a few straight lines on Fred and Barney to show more of their ruggedness relative to their softer wives and round, chubby babies.

Unfortunately, many of today's cartoon shows fail to recognize the importance of line and tend to design everything with too many straight lines and sharp corners. Yes, I share John K's extreme distaste for this supposedly "stylistic" approach, as there really isn't anything clever or appealing about it in my view. Here's an example of what I mean:

This character has been created almost entirely from straight lines. Even his tongue! The result is that the character looks like he's been chiseled out of stone rather than made up of flesh, muscle and hair. The image ultimately has no sense of weight or volume and is merely a flat graphic design, and not a very good one either, considering the directionless arrangement of the lines in the hair for example. It certainly has not been designed for anything more than stiff, mechanical movement either, and this self limitation makes me long for the days when characters were designed specifically to work well in flowing, organic animation. Visually, it has all of the wit and appeal of a connect-the-dots puzzle in a kids' activity book! Sadly, we're seeing more and more witless design in today's TV animation. The tragedy is that it doesn't have to be this way, as there are countless individuals toiling away within the industry (and outside of it too) who are capable of far better design themselves. Why are they not being given a chance to shine? Why this rampant trend toward mediocrity?

Angry Girlfriend!

Here's a little drawing exercise I give out in my first week of teaching just to see what all of my 2nd Year students are currently capable of. They have to illustrate the following two character scenario:

A teen boy shows up late for a date with his girlfriend.

I tell them that I want to see an emphasis on good clear poses stressing line of action that would also read well in silhouette. I want them to devise entertaining expressions and body language that show what the characters are feeling, all of which should result in a clear visual statement in a single drawing that communicates to the viewer what's going on in the scene. And they have about 20 - 25 minutes to do it before I collect them up and then show them all on the overhead projector in a quick, lighthearted critique.

Since I can't let my students have all the fun, I also draw out the scenario myself during the same timeframe. Here are a couple of different possible approaches I came up with:

In this first sketch, the girl is looking quite defiant with arms folded and back turned on her hapless boyfriend who's trying desperately to plead his case. I like her withering glare!

In this second variation, the girl has taken a more aggressive stance, moving toward the poor guy who's backing away as she's really ripping into him.

In both drawings, I also took a number of quick glances toward my students who were busily producing their own variations, taking note of clothing, hairstyles and facial types that I could incorporate into my sketches. This is something I explained to them afterward, suggesting that they too should develop the good habit of taking visual notes in their sketchbooks on all that they see around them. Building up a reference library of character types, face shapes, fashion, etc, etc., will always result in much richer character designs in future assignments!

Some Old Stuff...

I've been a bit busy lately since I've just started up again with teaching at the college. So nothing too interesting to post today. I was going through some files on my old computer, transfering stuff over, and came across this series of character drawings. This was done originally for the newsletter that used to be published by the Toronto Animated Image Society (TAIS), and had accompanied an article I'd written on the subject of posing and body language. I thought my Sheridan students might get something out of these, as we've been talking about character posing. That's all I've got for today!

"Sebastien"

Just look at this lovely, joyful little film I came across on the blog of Genevieve Godbout. This is a 3rd Year group film from the Gobelins school in France, in which Miss Godbout was one of the students who contributed. The running time is just less than 2 minutes and the idea is very simple and clear. The characters are very simple and solid in their design, making them quite conducive to full, fluid animation. The backgrounds are a particular treat, being entirely hand painted as far as I can tell, with a warm and visually appealing colour palette. The main reason I am posting this, is that I am hoping it will serve as inspiration to my crop of 2nd Year students from last year who are about to embark on their 3rd Year group film project at Sheridan College. This little film well illustrates just what can be done when you keep your idea simple, resisting the temptation to do something more "epic" in scale. Also, in order to complete a film like this takes cooperation among all members of the group. A lovely effort like "Sebastien" proves that it really is quite possible to achieve!

By the way, these thoughts are but a small echo of what Mark Kennedy also posted about last week in far greater detail. Definitely a good read.

If I Could Talk To The Animals

There's an interesting article on Michael Barrier's site that I think is worth checking out. His August 5th entry is a reprinting of a commentary by Ed Hooks regarding the approach taken to "Inter-species Communication" in Pixar's "Ratatouille". Here's Ed's first two paragraphs just to provide some context to what I'm about to discuss:

"One of the early and most important decisions Brad Bird had to make when he started working on the script for "Ratatouille" was what to do about inter-species communication. The star of the movie is a rat after all, and much of the supporting cast is human. If you have the rat speak out-loud English with any of the human characters, you will overly challenge the audience member's willingness to suspend his disbelief.

Inter-species communication is a fascinating challenge for animation. You can anthropomorphize inanimate things and animals all you want, but you have to be very careful about how you have them interact with one another, and especially with humans. In "Lion King", all of the animals had human traits and personalities, but they related only to one another. In "Finding Nemo", the fish never directly communicate with that human dentist. In "Lady and the Tramp", the animals talk to one another, but not to the humans. In "Cars", John Lasseter solved the problem by not having human drivers for the cars."

This is actually a topic that I've given a lot of thought to over the years, as I believe it's something that should be considered by anybody attempting to write stories /screenplays featuring animal characters. Back in 1997, the first year I taught Character Design at Sheridan College, I decided to put these observations down on paper in order to give the students something to keep in mind as they were developing animal characters that could be used in their films. Based upon all of the animated features, shorts and TV shows I'd absorbed over a lifetime of watching cartoons, I felt that one could distill the number of approaches into four main categories. This is not to imply that there are only these possibilities, by the way, as I've seen examples that are subsets of these categories, or may be oddball exceptions to all of my arbitrary rules!


For instance, there may even be more than one of these categories represented within a single film. An example of this would be in Disney's "Pinocchio". Figaro the kitten is representative of the first category, as he shows some humanlike emotion while remaining very much an animal as Geppetto's pet. But then you also have Honest John the fox and Gideon who, although also a cat, is totally unlike Figaro. These two rascals are very much representative of the fourth category, in that they walk upright, talk, wear clothes, and exhibit totally humanlike behavior. In addition, they would both be human size relative to Geppetto and the other human characters. As such, these two characters are visual metaphors for human "types", the fox in particular meant to be a caricature of one who is sly and untrustworthy. Because "Pinocchio" is such an abstract, allegorical story to begin with, mixing more than one category doesn't seem to be a problem. In films that are more mainstream in their stories, I think more care needs to be taken in order to keep things clear to the viewer. So please, just take this theorizing on my part for whatever it's worth. It's really just meant to give an idea of what may be considered as characters are developed in regard to, in the words of Ed Hooks, "Inter-species Communication". Much thanks to Michael Barrier for making me aware of Ed's article.

A Squirrel in the Rough

Here's a little character I've been playing with for awhile. I've had an idea for a story that's been kicking around in my noggin involving a squirrel and some birds. I'm hoping to develop it into a children's book. Anyway, this is the rough prototype for the rascal. (Actually, I think in several expressions he sort of looks like me!)

I'm posting these sketches as an example of what I am always suggesting to my Sheridan Animation students. That is, before finalizing a character design you should take it out for a "test drive" to see how it's working. A common mistake I've found is that a student will draw one or two views of a character and be instantly sold on it. I maintain that you should never nail down a character design until you've sketched it many times over, trying it out in various animated poses. Many's the time that I've found that a design that looked good to me initially proved to be awkward to move around into different poses. When that happens, always be prepared to make whatever modifications that may be necessary to make it work better.


In these 2 sets of sketches, I've just allowed my stream of consciousness to take over, doodling my squirrel in whatever pose and attitude that happens to flow out of my pencil naturally. None of these sketches are finished in any way and they may not even show him in altogether consistent proportions. In fact, sometimes I find that more ideal proportions may develop quite naturally through the repetition of drawing him out in different poses. Likewise, the facial features may evolve into a more appealing design through trying various moods and expressions, as well as tilts and angles of the head. Even my approach to construction is looser at this stage. To dwell too much on structure right away would be a hindrance to developing him as a little personality.


For me, this is what is most fun about drawing. I love to just do little rough sketches like these to get a performance on paper. Admittedly, I am much happier having made a career being a cartoonist in the print medium. The only way I would want to be involved in animation is if I could draw in this "organic", fully dimensional way that pleases me. I'm not much of a fan of today's flat, graphic styles, I'm afraid.

More Character Types

Here are a bunch more sketches drawn from video, like the ones I showcased on my Oct. 4th entry. The ones pictured above are all of guests who have appeared on the Charlie Rose interview show seen on PBS. The show's website features numerous archived clips that are just great to sketch from, since the interviews allow you to study the subject in medium close-up, moving just enough that you can get a good feel for the design of the face and body, as well as their personality. I deliberately have drawn guests who I am not familiar with, as the point of the exercise is to take an honest approach to seeing the "design" of a face, in the size, shape and relative placement of the facial features on various head shapes, without getting hung up on whether or not a good likeness has been achieved. These sketches can then later be used as a starting point in developing "Character Types" for your cartoons and animation designs.

Here are direct links to all of the clips I used, so you can see how I interpreted the video reference:
Alison Gopnik
Klaus Schwab
Yang Lan
Jack Ma
Annie Cohen-Solal
Tung Chee-Hwa



The montage above is just of various people I have sketched recently from TV, so unfortunately I can't link to any clips for you. But I post them in the hope that it will encourage some of my readers to try this method of sketching people from video reference while taking a more caricatured approach. Specifically, I offer these up as examples to my Sheridan students as being representative of what I will be looking for in your ongoing assignment that I'll be assessing at the end of the fall semester.

Sketching Character Reference

I put this post together to tie in with what I'll be starting to cover in my Character Design classes at Sheridan College this week. The topic is "Character Types", and these are a few samples I just sketched yesterday to illustrate what I'll be stressing in this subject. I'm a firm believer that an animated or illustrated character should aspire to be distinct as an individual - the visual design suggesting a certain personality through the physical face and body type. The character designer on an animated film should serve the same role as a casting director on a live-action production. Just as a casting director tries to cast an actor or actress who has a believable "look" for a particular role, so should the character designer be trying to create a character that visually suggests the personality to be portrayed in the film.

There is a tendency for the novice to simply design a character off the top of his head, without considering what physical aspects and personality traits seem to work well in combination together to communicate a clear visual statement to the audience. My view is that, before an artist can have any knowledgeable output, one must first have some informed input. Therefore, I strongly recommend sketching people in the world around you, either from life or, as is my preference, from studying various character types on video in order to build up a library from which to draw upon when designing a specific character. I prefer the latter way of working, as video provides a way of studying the subject in a completely controlled manner, allowing one to study the subject at one's leisure. It helps to see the subject in motion, which makes it easier to see the physical "design" of the face and body type in order to then exaggerate and abstract it. Additionally, seeing the subject in motion and displaying physical nuances through body language, expressions, vocal mannerisms, etc. makes the resulting sketches far more successful in capturing personality and inner life than one would likely achieve by working from a still photo image.

Anyway, here are some samples sketched from YouTube that hopefully will illustrate what I'm saying more clearly. It should be noted, however, that the goal of the sketches is not to come up with a perfect likeness of the subject, but rather to make an honest attempt at seeing a unique design in the face and body type and using that as a springboard for abstraction and caricature:


Here are the links to the YouTube videos I sketched these from:
Character #1 Character #2
Character #3 Character #4


Here are the links to these videos:
Character #1 Character #2
Character #3 Character #4

Ironically, the "tough guy" character I've sketched from the YouTube clip is an imagined personality suggested by the physical type, as the fellow in the video really comes across as a very friendly and gentle sort. But in animation and cartooning, perception can carry more weight than being literal to the subject. Remember, you're trying to put forward a visual impression that your audience will understand at a quick glance. When required, more subtlety can be developed though story and animated characterization as your film progresses.

Fan Expo 2010 (pt.2)

Even more than the exhibits and stuff for sale, I think the real fun of Fan Expo is seeing all of the fans who turn up in costume. Here's a sampling of what we saw at this year's event:

Here's Sheridan instructor Apollo Okamura with students, Vanessa Stefaniuk and Nicole Gagnon, as well as Vanessa's brother Robert.

Vanessa strikes an action pose.

Iain Lew Kee as She-Ra poses with He-Man.



Just what the HECK is this thing?!!

Some Star Wars characters.




HOLY HOOD ORNAMENT, BATMAN!!!






Hey, that's no Boy Wonder!

Baskin' Robin, perhaps?

Arrrrh, girls, let me have a Pikachu!

It's those wacky anime kids!

Whatever it is you're delivering, I'll be more than happy to sign for it!

Yes, there are lots of cute girls at Fan Expo, all happy to pose for photos!





I hope this girl heals up okay. Maybe I'll hang around while they remove her bandages, just to make sure she's all right.

This girl had everyone's head turning. I found out later that she's Kat Curtis, "The Naked Nerd" from The Naked News show. I'll have to tune in sometime to see what she uncovers.

This poor alien creature is obviously pooped out from breathing in the earth's atmosphere all day. It must be time to gather up the swag and head back to the home planet.

"Sayonara, people of planet earth!"