[^^Up to AS42 HOME page]
Studio Skills

On this page:

               {Character drawing/cartooning}


  

Character drawing/cartooning

This is very simple.  You have to make a 3d model of it.

Well, other than that it's simple.

It's really hard (unless you're someone like Rembrandt
or Lodoviccio (Michaelangelo)), to render into 2d
an object which is 3d. That's why artists use models.
You learn this (or start to appreciate the complexity
of it) in Drawing 101/102.

So, in cartooning, how do you do it???

We take a page from master cartoonist Stephan Pastis
best known for his "Pearls before Swine". In one of
his books, he mentioned that needed to draw one of
the characters hiding in a clothes hamper. So, he
dragged the hamper from the bathroom, set it up 
and drew it. Commenting that that was the sort of
hard work and dedication that he put into his 
comic strip. ;)

The same idea is the little possible figure of
the hand or a person made of wood. It's known
as a mannican or a maquette (although technically
a maquette refers to a more detailed puppet or
the armature for a statue.

Regardless, we should think of "Wallace and Grommet"
by Nick Park and Company or Will Vinton's superb
"The Adventures of Mark Twain". 

We can make a character (how-ever crude it might be)
out of modeling clay (or plasticine, playdough, etc),
or even out of a few styrofoam balls, and even to the
extent of making clothes, hats, and props.

Also, even a lot of kid's dolls are pose-able; eg,
Barbie, GI Joe, etc.

When we have it, we can do one of several things:

 1) set it up at eye level and draw what we see.
    But, not being Lodoviccio or Rembrandt,

 2) Take a photo of it at the angle that we want
    and draw from it. This has the advantage of
    making the image FLAT - perfect for 2d 
    drawing. Remember the further away you are
    and using a telephoto lens will flatten the
    image more. Taking a close up of the image
    makes it larger and will include more 3d 
    "hints" - such as shading, surface texture,
    etc.  You may want to do a couple of each
    as REFERENCE PHOTOS. 

  Did i mention that you will probably need to
  light the figure?? ;)

  3) If you're really like me who can't see a
     a bridge crossing a river and "see" it as
     simply two lines crossing each other in
     a geometric plane. 

     Take your photos, down load them and print
     them out. For this you will probably want
     something like card stock (say 65# instead
     of the usual 24# paper - a lot of paper is
     now 20# or even 16# (pretty thin).

     Lay a piece of (ahem) tracing paper over the
     image and trace your feature - you'll be 
     amazed at how easy this makes thing.  AND HOW
     FAST.

     Take the tracing paper and tack it up over your
     computer screen and (with mouse - preferably a
     light pen, or best yet a GRAPHICS tablet input 
     device), trace the image into PC PAINT (or better
     yet paint.net (see cnet.com for free download).

And voila!! You look like John Woo (best known for his
multiplicity of cameras and being able to set them all
up at once and film a scene; eg, "PayCheck").

If you need to, you can make a "stage" and mark a grid
on it. For those great "camera slowly circles the person
as they "look around", you can use a loop of string and 
a tack in the middle to make a giant compass and then 
move the camera along at regular intervals - leaving 
your mannican (as well as back-drop chars, etc) as they
are. Believe me, once you start moving ANYTHING, it 
gets really complicated. People at Ardmann (Nick Park's
co) and Will Vinton, etc can THINK in frames and know
just how much to move a character. Of course they're
doing full jointed (called fully articulated) models.
And of course, for close ups of the face... Probably
best to use a couple of models of JUST the face and
then use those to draw that part of the face. 

Again, think of using something like styrofoam balls,
for the head, and then either draw (or sculpt with
clay, etc) the features on it (eyes, nose, mouth, etc).

Now you know my terrible secret:  That's why i almost
always use profile or straight on shots -- they're 
the easiest to draw because they have the LEAST 3d
elements.

Also note: By "dressing" the figure, we automatically
take care of hidden lines - which usually have to
be erased from the image before we attempt to render
or capture it on the computer screen. This is true
of "sets". A card table is good enough, but the more
stable the "set" is, the less it will vibrate as 
your are moving things around.

Obviously, this all leads to ...  "Stop Motion Animation"
of which the artists who created Godzilla and of course
the late, great Ray Harryhausen were the world's geniuses
at this. And of course, don't forget King Cong and Fay Ray.

good luck, and rsvp if you need any more ideas.

-- Frank



-[]-

-[]-

-[]-

-[]-

-[]-

-[]-

-[]-

-[]-