Lesson 1 - Animation School

Ok! So I started this thing to get me motivated to actually do what I like.. That doesn't make much sense does it?

Anyway, I'll get straight to the chase... I recently started John K. and Preston Blair's Online Animation Course. What a gem! And just like John K. promised.. I hate doing these drawings! I hate them terribly because they prove to me how bad I am at it... However, I'll persevere until I start getting this stuff to look good! Maybe if I'm lucky John K. might even take a look and give a pointer or two..

So anyway, here's the work I did for lesson 1. Drawing heads...

I was surprised to find that even though I've been drawing since I was a wee little kid.. I had somehow lost the basics which I've known and practiced, but still lost somehow. Basic construction is what I mean. I could barely draw a nice looking egg shape when I started this lesson! The goat is the one cartoon I actually copied from Preston's book in the above image.

I also made the unfortunate mistake of doing some of these on lined notebook... a mistake I shan't make again. I also did a little experimenting; guesstimating how the dog's face might look from the front. Looks like crap apparently...

Most of these notebook drawings turned out semi-ok overall, I think.

I used a red sharpie to correct mistakes.. not realizing that was a mistake in itself.. The line is so thick, I couldn't see the correction! Moved to red pencil after that.

Again.. I did a bit of experimenting with what I learned to try and do a few of my own characters. They didn't turn out as well as the cartoons from the book.

I used the turning egg model to try and predict what this bear would look like from some different angles. It didn't turn out too bad I think. The two at the bottom and the one near the bottom off to the right turned out good. Also, the one at the very top is a copy of the exact position in the book and I think that turned out pretty nice. Of course, this is all well and good until I get to lesson 3 and start having to compare my work over Preston's and pick out all the flaws in mine. Haha! Can't wait...

Lastly, I have a little treat. I did a Kowalski sort of inspired dude based on the things I learned from lesson 1.. Even though lesson 1 didn't get in to body's, but hey.. I'm an over-achiever.. what can I say?

So, of course I welcome feed back of any kind. I'm trying to get better here, so lay it on me! Also, If you are interested in doing the course or just want to see where I'm getting a lot of these classic cartoon examples to work from.. you can check it out here:

http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/meta-100000-animation-drawing-course.html

There's also a link to John K's blog at that link. If you love cartoons check it out, funk master!

Alright, well thanks for looking at my crappy work! There's more to come!


-da99et