"TWINS"

We've been posting a bunch of videos at Creative Juices, lately. Back to drawing. Just moments ago I had a chance to hop on over to John K's blog, where he's talking about a term I'd never heard used before: how to avoid twins in your poses. See Mickey, above.

As quoted in "The Illusion of Life": (I think we have it kicking around the studio)

"Another sign admonished us to watch out for 'twins' in our drawings. This is the unfortunate situation where both arms or both legs are not only parallel but doing exactly the same thing."

Drawings like this should remind you of how you probably started drawing when you were a kid. I drew countless Ninja Turtles that looked just like this. John talks further about how this ties in to avoiding symmetry in your drawings, period. Symmetry has the effect of sucking the life out your character. He posts tons of great model sheets of Mickey to show what an alive character should look like.

I'm mentioning this as a reminder to all you Flash animators (that means you, Fablefolk!). It is INCREDIBLY easy to be tempted to copy, paste, and flip arms and legs to save time. Especially when you have a character facing forward. Every shortcut has a consequence. If you can spare the minute or two that it takes to rid your drawings of symmetry, they will appear all the more lifelike...less mechanical.

Having fun with inbetweens!

Greetings zany animators! I haven't redirected your attention to John K's blog in a little while, so I thought I would share some of his most recent posts with you. In particular, this post from today (Inbetweens Can Be Fun Too). It's often common practice to focus your efforts on keyframes in animation, but much like his idols from cartoon days past (Bob Clampett), John reminds us that you can have fun with every frame of animation if you so choose. Be sure to watch the quicktime at the end of his post to see the animation in action.

More "Yogi posts" here and here. In later, he talks about how he channels limited Hanna-Barbara techniques---still using fun drawings.

Background Design

Renée came to me the other day with a question about background design...mainly that she wanted some inspiration to look at, so I pointed her in the direction of Rob Richard's Animation Backgrounds blog. I'd seen it referenced before on John K's blog as a one-stop depot for animation backgrounds of all styles, minus the characters! There's even a handy list on the side that helps organize them into films and periods. Well, a day later, John K. is blogging away about backgrounds. Check out his post here, as I'm referencing only a few of the images he pulled from Rob Richard's site.

I'll be the first to admit that I have a difficult time with backgrounds. John K. does a good job breaking down the key principles of composition and hierarchy—how you frame a shot and how you organize elements on a page. Like with everything else in image-making, it's always key to consider things like contrast, positive and negative space (you know the laundry list)...all the things you would consider as a designer of anything. Here are two "stylized" backgrounds that really excel (from Warner Brothers Cartoons of the 1950s):



Breathtaking! I can recall a recent film we did where we had a scene with a park bench —notice the frame of reference here. I know I fall into the trap of keeping the horizon at a flat 180 degrees. See how much more dynamic these compositions are because of the angling of forms? They still adhere to a system of perspective and logic. Here are poignant words from John K:

"Some modern layout artists see a license for anarchy in these stylized images. I see very slightly distorted perspectives and stylistic interpretations of reality, but with still great planning and organization of all the graphic elements into a quickly readable statement that has a purpose in the scene and story. Each element does not follow its own physics ; it is subservient to the overall composition. Every detail follows and helps define the larger object it is part of."

Check out this fire red background from 101 Dalmations:

Here's a random shot from The Jungle Book. You can tell right away where Mowgli is supposed to go, and the background is balanced as to not overwhelm you with jungle:

Or a house fit for a mouse! This is from "Jonann Mouse", a Tom and Jerry cartoon that won an Oscar. This is the full pan...low to the ground (notice the chair leg in the foreground):

Anyway, that's just a small sampling. Definitely check out this invaluable resource!

Best Cartoon Bumper Ever?

I often post on some of the more striking things John K. has to say about animation. His latest post analyzes the opener/bumper of Rocky and Bullwinkle:

"How the Hell did they come up with this great bumper? Not only is this frame the best drawing of Bullwinkle, but just about every aspect of the cartoon is inspired...How would you plan a cartoon like this? Certainly not with a script. I don't think you could do it with just a storyboard either, because it has no logical continuity , but it all seems to go perfectly to the crazy wonderful music."

Link to Video

Previously blogged about:
The Design of Rocky and Bullwinkle

A Peek into Process

This is my final post on investigating the various methodologies of Flash animation. At least for the next week or so;) But seriously, I appreciate anyone who has taken the time to pour over what I'm admittedly calling a series of rants.

My mind has been spinning all weekend on animation processes. I've been tinkering around in Flash, in preparation for new shorts I'm thinking of for FVTV. And I recalled the Comcast commercial John K. and his team produced last summer...specifically because I remembered it was created in Flash. I dug up this interview from ColdHardFlash, which I found especially enlightening. It's a goldmine of insight into production. Say what you will of John K, but at least the guy is open to sharing his ideas on process. And remember, he was one of the pioneers of Flash animation. In this interview, they also bring in members of his production crew. This one in particular struck a chord:

AARON: Does this type of animation differ from a TV series?
ERIC: Totally. On the TV series that I’ve worked on, everything is stock digital puppets with a few special poses here and there. On the Comcast commercial nothing is stock - John drew layouts for everything. I enjoy working with layouts a lot more, the poses tend to be stronger and more organic. Working with stock it’s always a matter of trying to Frankenstein a pose together, like getting the correct hand from the library to fit the pose, “eh, it’s the wrong angle, hopefully no one will notice.” However, for me, working with layouts makes the turnaround time much longer; maybe I’m just not accustomed to that kind of process anymore. From my experiences working with both layout and stock pipelines in Flash, working with stock is the best way of going about making a TV series. Layouts require too much clean up and rigging that would most likely bottleneck somewhere in the production. Though the quality is better with layouts, it is just not economical for the demands of the studios with tight budgets and tighter schedules, especially when competing with overseas shops. But for a short, like the Comcast commercial, it’s totally the way to go. What was the question again?

So, it would appear that we're not the only one's debating a "stock" approach versus a "layout" approach. Stock, I guess being the industry term for Library, Layout meaning shot for shot. And then this other quote:

AARON: What type of direction did John give you before you animated?
ERIC: John’s main goal was to make this commercial not look ‘Flashy’ but still be smooth. He didn’t want too many overshoots, even timed tweens, or over distorted drawings using the transform tool. Most of the revisions he gave me were to substitute overshoots with slow ins to eliminate the jerky animation we often see in Flash cartoons.

Lots of jargon there. Fun to figure out what it all means. Elsewhere in the interview John K. states that this 1:15 spot took about a month to create with 15 people (voices included). Which he says is 10 times faster than any other commercial he's made for TV. But that still sounds like a heck of a lot of time to me with so many resources (we don't know if they were working fulltime, of course). I'm realizing more and more that the quality of animation I personally want to achieve is not as easy as it sounds, though definitely possible. Reality is kicking in :)

I find that we're in a unique position in the animation community, because few of us are actually trained in animation. We're all trying to figure out best methods to get the job done. But there's something nice about that, because we don't have the weight of convention holding us down.

My personal learning journey has been something like this: I look at the animation I like and try to figure out how it works. Which is where biases come in, because we all have our tastes. But as a company, we should be open with our ideas. So that we can all learn from each other. Too often, process boils down to budgets and results. And while I think all that has tons of merit, I want to make sure we're just as focused on pushing the artform as far as it can go. We've built an environment at FableVision that is a friend to creativity, and we should take advantage of that every day.

The Design of Rocky and Bullwinkle

John K. has a great post on the limited animation of Rocky and Bullwinkle. He specifically addresses the importance of good design if you're gonna cut corners on the animation. Meaning, the drawings have to be top notch. He has all sorts of fun stills and great examples of character design. Read it here.

One of the things I would really like to shoot for at FableVision is not being completely tied down to a character library. We do limited animation; that's for sure. But there's something about seeing the same set of heads all the way through a short. I know that's part of the whole methodology of the Flash look. But it doesn't have to be. He shows how Bullwinkle looks slightly different in every shot, but he is still recognizable as Bullwinkle because he has strong features and is built on a basic formula of shapes and adjectives:

He is tall and thin
He has a long neck
short skinny legs
knobby knees
A furry peanut shaped torso
His head is made of two shapes, a small rounded cranium and a larger droopy nose and muzzle.
Goofy eyes

The exact dimensions of all these adjectives is not set in stone. A great designer can play with the proportions, angles and specific details and still make the characters recognizable.

There is no tracing of model sheets.

The artist messes around with the specific details to keep everything organic, alive....and artistic.

This is good advice. Just let it sit...think about it.

UPDATE: John K is planning on breaking down the design of Rocky and Bullwinkle. A start---> here

And even MORE ---> HERE! (Great cartoon analysis! A must read)

Backgrounds

John K. has a nice little post about some background art from a Donald Duck cartoon. He's blogged frequently about how cartoons should have better color design (he specifically love's Art Lozzi's background designs for Yogi Bear). Worth checking out when you get second. He talks about how the color scheme is limited, but not monochromatic. Browns, reds, grays, and oranges are working great together. And subtle enough so when the characters are overlayed, they still pop.

John K. Commercials

Howdy, folks! John K. has a bunch of old commercials posted on his blog that he and his studio Spumco created a few years back. Watch them here. They are all mini-quicktime downloads, which is fun because you can step through them to look at specific keyframes. The Old Navy ones in particular are real gems. I remember them being on TV, as well as the old Nike spot. He notes that his main goal was to make commercials you wouldn't want to fast forward through.

When you watch them, note a number of things. The timing (music, animation, sound effects, pacing) is nearly perfect. The animation is extremely fun to watch (a lot of great drawings went into these). The character design is amazing. And lastly, but probably most importantly, look at the variety of color schemes! The backgrounds aren't entirely naturalistic, and in some of them, even the sky changes color from shot to shot.

Line Quality

Hey gang! This is the first post of what I hope becomes a series of discussions related to picture-making and animation. So here goes! Today, John K. has some thoughts on the importance of line quality in animation. Here's the link to his post where he asks the question "Is Good Line Important?" Definitely worth checking out, as he chronicles his opinion of how line has taken a back seat in some animation. A lot of what he talks about is clean-up, which is the animation process where the inker comes in to clean up the the rough pencil sketches of the animator. The trick here is the preserve the energy of the gestural quality of you sketch. I typically go through a similar process when I take a sketch to it's inked stage in my illustrations (see below). I'd be curious to hear about everyone else's general methodologies for getting from sketch to final...both in the digital and traditional realms.


Now, most of the FableVision crew brings a different philosophy on line to the table. I personally find line the most interesting part of making a picture—it's where I get my kicks as an artist. Our differences in how we use line define our styles as artists.


So I'm gonna single a couple people out. First, I'll start with Pete. Of all of us, he probably takes the loosest approach to line—wavy and varying as it skips around the page. Pete's line has a ton of energy to it. It breathes evidence of the brush stroke that created it. It's not continuous—broken in segments...you can see where Pete picks up his pen as he scoots along. It retains the properties of a sketch.




Allie also uses a fairly loose line, but prefers a single-width line, best created with a pen or a pencil. Her line-weight is uniform, and has the confidence of a doodle. One consequence of uniform line-weight is that it flattens the drawing. The line reads as pure line, which an artist can use to their advantage.


Keith's line, especially when he works in pencil, fades in and out. He employs both contrast and thickness. When he works in Flash, Keith uses a varied line weight to achieve the subtleties in contrast he gets from the pressure variation of a pencil line. And this variation is used for emphasis—the effect is that the drawing has realistic 3-dimensionality.

None of these samples use line in conjunction with color, which is an entirely different balancing act. But I thought it would be best to isolate line in its raw form at first. What are people's thoughts on the importance of line?