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.

Continuing On From Last Lesson...

I'm still referring back to this post that John K. had on his blog last week that I expanded upon in my last post. I think there's a lot of good stuff in there that I'm sort of taking on as a personal challenge to see what I can come up with based on John's ideas on character design.

The little guy that I had drawn as a demonstration of simple cartoon construction in my last post is appealing enough I suppose, but his structure is limited to very basic spherical shapes: slightly distorted egg shapes for both his head and body. As I had mentioned, it was for a beginners' cartoon class, so that's why I kept it as simple to follow as I could, but it is admittedly a bit boring. My own personal taste dictates that there be more of a feeling of animation, especially the principle of "Squash and Stretch" that gives a character a more pliable and "organic" quality. On a chubby little guy like this particularly, it's good to imbue him with a feeling of loose flesh that reacts in actions and expressions. Additionally, I am trying to explore other design possibilities, which John covers as "Aesthetic", where you try to make the design more visually appealing by varying the types of lines and shapes, as well as relative lengths and widths of the many elements within the figure. So, in the case of this little guy, I tried distorting those original egg shapes, adding some straight planes and what we call 'S' curves to break up the monotony of what it had looked like before.

Along with this visual experimenting, I am also at this stage thinking of what sort of "Personality" type he might be, again going back to John's thoughts on what should be considered when creating a character design. In the original design, he was looking like a bit of a curmudgeon, sort of a similar type to Mr. Wilson in Hank Ketcham's "Dennis the Menace". In these new sketches I am trying different personalities on him, deciding whether I might want him to be worn out and tired, pompous and aloof, or a bit more silly and carefree. Well, here's where the sketches start to suggest something more specific...

The sketch on the righthand side of the exploratory concepts page recalled a guy I used to work with years ago named George. Just like the rough sketch, George always had a big easygoing smile, with an upper lip and mustache that jutted out above a lower lip that was swept back with a receding chin. He was a really funny and delightful guy, so I thought I would base my character on his personality and physical traits, though this is not meant to be a perfect likeness of him, but rather, just using George as a starting point for developing this guy in a specific direction.

The veteran Disney animator, Eric Larson, often noted how he based the persona of Figaro, the kitten in "Pinocchio", on that of his own little nephew. This little kid could be stubborn and prone to temper tantrums, so Eric imbued his character with similar mannerisms, resulting in a character "type" that the audience would likely be familiar with and thus could easily relate to. This approach of basing characters on either one or a combination of several people you've actually met in your life experiences can result in richer animated performances and designs that really communicate a specific idea, rather than just trying to invent something randomly from scratch.

So, in developing this character based on my old friend George, I tried to recall specific instances from when we worked together. One thing I remembered was how George used to enjoy going out for the occasional game of golf which was compliments of one of our longtime vendors in appreciation for the work thrown his way during the year. By George's own admission, he was a lousy golfer himself, but he was mostly looking forward to the free meal he'd get back at the clubhouse dining room! George was a wheeler-dealer who loved to barter for things rather than pay good money, therefore a free lunch was never turned down. Another fond recollection I have of George is his impromptu, hip-shakin' Elvis impersonations. Again, that's something colourful and fun that can be utilized in the traits of this character design. By the way, George may have had a middle aged paunch, but he was not as hefty as this character, so that is still a direct holdover from the original concept. This character could be taken further, exploring more visual possibilities before refining it into a final design, but since this is just for the sake of this demo, I'm going to leave it there.

Lastly, here is a page of rough poses I did of this dumb mutt many years ago. You'll note that this pooch ended up as my life model in the cartoon heading up my last post. Fortunately, the black eye he'd likely acquired in a doggy rumble seems to have healed up nicely since the rough sketch.

Cartoon Construction 101

This week I head back to teaching 2nd Year Animation Character Design at Sheridan College here in Ontario. As John Kricfalusi has just posted this very informative article regarding character design on his blog, I thought I might tie into what he is saying once again. This post deals with what John describes as the "Functional" aspect of the design process - just understanding how simple forms placed together in an appealing manner is the foundation that an animator/cartoonist starts out with initially.

These drawings posted below are fairly simple, as they were done not for Sheridan students, but rather, for a more basic cartooning class I have taught informally at a couple local venues over the last several years. As such, they are not as "animated" as I usually prefer to draw, lacking a feel of "Squash and Stretch" that would give them more of an organic, pliable quality. But they serve the purpose of showing the concept of how to draw a simple constructed character in a variety of poses while maintaining consistency of form and proportion. Remember, this particular cartooning class included several students who were just beginners!

Here are the simple constructed forms, with guidelines to determine the tilt and angle of the head and body, as well as for consistent placement of all of the surface details. Though pictured in black line here for clarity, it is recommended you draw this stage lightly with a blue pencil in order to distinguish it from the finished outline and details you will be adding on top later.

Here is the finished character with all surface details added, and the light blue underdrawing still slightly visible so that you can see how it is done. As you can now see, those guidelines have helped in the accurate placement of his facial features, as well as the collar of his shirt and belt line too. Also notice how I've varied his expression and eye direction in order to create some personality and more visual interest. When drawing different tilts and angles of the forms, you also have to understand some of the basic rules of perspective in order to give the illusion of a solid form rotating in space while maintaining a consistent volume. Again, as John always tells beginning cartoonists, it's a good idea to learn what you can from the Preston Blair book, as that's quite honestly how most of we professionals learned in the beginning, back when we were young! Artistic styles may change over the years, but the fundamentals of good solid drawing do not.

PS: I dedicate today's post to young Chet, who was looking for some advice on how to construct a cartoon character. I hope this helps him out a bit.

Diversity and "Fairyations"

There was an interesting comment from Bill Drastal in regards to my last post. He says:

I worked for a web company designing characters and other images and while I can't say what I designed them for, we were defiantly pushed in a direction where all the main characters came out looking like the same, and when we had to design characters of different racial backgrounds the direction was to make them, quote "Normal looking"

Believe me, Bill, I can sympathize with what you say. Unfortunately we live in politically correct times, and there's far too much sensitivity to portraying people of various ethnic backgrounds (other than caucasian, of course) with any degree of caricature. Sure it's a Black character, but it mustn't look too Black. Inexplicably, there seems to be a mindset that says that only caucasians can be caricatured and that the features of other races must be played down or, ironically, made to look more like those of caucasians. Frankly, I don't get it. In fact, I would think that the tendency to make Blacks, Asians and Hispanics all look like blandly designed White people would be more offensive to them.

Back in the early 1970's we had Bill Cosby's "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids". Though the entertainment merits of the show may be open to debate, the character design was rather commendable. It wasn't brilliant cartooning, but there was at least a very distinct, individual look to each character. Furthermore, this nice variety of shapes and sizes of the characters also helped to visually communicate something of each one's personality. This is something I can't stress enough in my class at Sheridan. Remember, you don't have a lot of time to explain your character to the audience. Ideally, the viewer should have some indication of what your characters are all about from a quick glance. Then you can use your acting and dialogue to further flesh them out as your story unfolds.

Alas, here we are in the politically correct new millennium and Bill Cosby has come back with another animated series, albeit aimed at the preschool set. Still, I really don't think that fact justifies dumbing the art design down to the level found in "Little Bill". As you can see, Little Bill and his whole family are a group of lookalike clones, completely lacking individuality of design as well as being devoid of real expression. I love Bill Cosby as a brilliant anecdotal comedian, but I really do question his taste in regards to the art stylings of "Little Bill".

Little Bill's friends don't fare much better either. They're still pretty much all the same basic design and rather robotic looking in their expressionless poses. I suppose I have to give some credit for varying the body types a bit, but overall they're pretty bland and similar in design. Is this something that today's little tykes really would enjoy? I'm just glad that I grew up on "The Flintstones" and old "Popeye" cartoons in my kindergarten days, before the days of highminded "childrens' programming" came into being.

Not all is bad today, however. Here's a character lineup from "The Proud Family" that shows character designs far more to my liking. I personally think this is one of the finest looking animated shows on TV currently. Yes, the stories are all little morality tales, of course, but it manages to be quite funny and entertaining too, not the least because of the beautifully designed characters. Just looking at this lineup of kids, you get a distinct impression of what each one is like - their personalities are obvious in a glance. Also, the visual designs work well as "silhouettes", that is, if you filled them in as solid black shapes they still would read clearly to the eye as distinct, appealing characters, all different shapes and sizes.

Here's Penny and her family, including her Dad, who's a real opportunistic type. I think he's a great character! Even the backgrounds on this show are pleasing to the eye and unified in design. I really give a lot of credit to all who have created the look of this show. Just compare these funny, colourful characters to their bland and boring counterparts on "Little Bill". I know what I'd be watching if I were still a 5 year old kid...

And now I'm going to look again at the new "Tinker Bell" movie from Disney. Like I said before, I would consider any one of these Fairy designs appealing enough on its own, as there is certainly a visual appeal to the head to body ratio, the flowing, organic shapes, and the colour schemes, as we've come to expect from Disney (though the impact is lessened by the CG animation, in my opinion, compared to the linear characters in classic Disney films.) But the fact that there are five of these tiny girls, all identical in face and form is what I see as a big, big mistake.


In looking at this publicity still from the film, one gets absolutely no impression of who these five fairies are: what their personalities are like, or how they might relate to each other in the story. Cute though they may be, they really communicate absolutely nothing to the viewer in their design. All of their various personalities are going to have to be explained through the dialogue, which is a real waste of the animation medium, I believe.


Not long ago, however, I saw this on Jim Hill's site. These young ladies have been hired by Disney to portray the five Fairies as meet 'n' greet walkaround characters at promotional events and maybe at Disneyland.


Ironically, I find these live young ladies to suggest far more in possible personality than their animated counterparts. We know who Tink is, but how about her friends? If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that the one on the lower left suggests an outgoing, "Voted most likely to succeed" type of girl. The Black girl looks pensive and serene, maybe a shy type. The girl with the braid might be a goofy and not particularly bright type, reminiscent of Goldie Hawn in her "Laugh-In" days. Finally, the Asian girl looks rather mischievous to me, perhaps given to pulling pranks on the others. Whether these impressions are accurate to what the film's characters are all about is not important - but the fact that these live actresses convey something to me in terms of a perceived personality is what counts. Why am I not able to read the animated characters as such? In cartooning, personalities should be even more obvious because you have the liberty of pushing them more through caricatured designs, expressions and body language. Which leads me to the following sketch:


Just for fun, I thought I'd try redesigning the Fairy characters as caricatures of these actresses, cartooned in a Disney style. I haven't drawn Tink herself though, for obvious copyright reasons aside from the fact we already know what she looks like. Is this what I think the final designs should be? Not necessarily, as I think they could be explored more in various ways and then simplified and refined more for the final models. But I genuinely believe this makes for a better starting point - to try and create distinct individuals that suggest their specific personality type through the visual designs. This is what Disney has historically always been so brilliant at in their classic animated features. Female attractiveness should not all derive from just one template - variety is the key to engaging the viewer's interest! I know there is the art talent at Disney to pull it off - but why are the artists not calling the shots?