$100k Animation Drawing Course: Lesson One

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 1

I finally got around to making my second attempt at Lesson One of John K's $100,000 Animation Drawing Course. This lesson was all about construction, which is something I have been using a lot over the past few months, so I figured I would be able to zoom through the lesson with no problem.

...How wrong I was!...

If you want to see my old attempts at this lesson, click here. I should start with the optimistic view that my attempts are better than the first time around, which is a relief! I began by trying to draw the bear at the top of the first page of Preston Blair's book...and trying again...and again...and again. That bloody bear really got the better of me as you can see from this first page of drawings:
My comments give away my dissatisfaction with each attempt. After wrestling with the bear for a while, I decided to move onto the egg heads.
These were all a bit scruffy and I was losing concentration - not even being bothered to switch to graphite for the details. The rabbit was ok though I guess. Anyway, that was late yesterday evening and I decided to call it a night.

I decided to keep up the effort tonight and returned to the task of that bloody bear! After drawing the rough construction lines in blue pencil, I decided it still wasn't looking right. It took a few minutes of staring and pondering before I realised what I had been doing wrong. Although I had been drawing the rings around the sphere correctly to show the head's direction, I hadn't been following the horizontal one for the positioning of the eyes. It's so obvious when you realise!
I had been so preoccupied with making the far eye smaller than the near one (for perspective) that I had neglected its position on the head entirely! After fixing the problem, I decided to stop drawing the bear, although there were still a couple of things wrong with it. As you can see, I had another stab at the egg heads. The middle one has a problem with the eyes. They seem to be looking towards the viewer even though they are supposed to be looking further up.

Finally, I had a go at the dog on page two of Preston Blair's book.
I felt this went better than my original attempt back in June 2006.

I thought I should share a couple of drawing techniques I have learned over the past months that I used for these drawings, but not the old ones. Firstly, I now hold my pencil differently, with the shaft of the pencil almost parallel to the paper, giving a smoother line and forcing me to pivot at my elbow instead of my wrist. I then drew the fine details in a normal position. Secondly (and I think lastly) I drew slowly. I have learned from my gesture drawings that quick sketching is not necessary to produce a nice drawing. I was slow and purposeful with each line in these new drawings.

Ok, just one final note: If John K or Stephen Worth happen to look at this post, may I take this opportunity to ask them if they or anyone else in the know can put up some instruction on cleaning up drawings and inking. These two processes are documented infrequently and I think it would be beneficial to those of us interested in all the component processes of animation. I think good drawings are often let down by poor clean-up.

Another Blow

Well my heart sank again today when I received a phone call from Cosgrove Hall Films here in Manchester. I have been in contact with them over the past few weeks regarding another project which they might possibly consider me for. Unfortunately, the producers decided that the sample of work I sent them "was not suitable for their current projects."

I'm getting used to hearing that!

Still, they suggested that I keep practicing and try again in a couple of months - they were impressed with my enthusiasm apparently. I just wish I knew whether I should focus on hand drawn stuff or Flash stuff or what. I asked that but the guy I talked to didn't know. I guess I'll just have to try to keep on top of it all.

I really tried not to get my hopes up this time (hence I didn't post anything about it on here), but I just couldn't help thinking "Will this be it? Will I get my foot in the door?" It's a tough world!

Finding the Will To Continue

As you may have noticed, I haven't had much to post in the last few days! This is due to crappy temp work wearing me down! It really is so hard to draw in the evenings after a mind-numbing day of typing meaningless numbers into a computer.

Still, I have one potential animation job in the pipeline, although I'm not saying too much just yet. I don't want to jinx it! More to come on that soon!

For now, I thought I would share some of the things I do to keep my mind focussed on becoming an animator. Of course I try to draw at work, although it's hard to really get into it with the boss looking over my shoulder. It's not like my old temp job in which I actually got paid to draw from time to time! I know how easy it can be for people to get stuck doing a job they hate, so to remind me where I'm aiming for, I wear a Mickey Mouse watch that I bought at Disney World and I have a picture of him on my phone:
I have had a few mocking comments from the other people in the office as they see Mickey as childish, but I don't care!

Back to School

If any of you have been reading this blog since its first days (or if you are one of the few who have looked back to my old posts) you will know that I originally set it up to follow John Kricfalusi's $100,000 Animation Drawing Course over at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog. As you may also know, I only attempted the first lesson before postponing my 'attendance'. My reason for this was that I felt that I needed to improve my range of artistic skills such as figure drawing and gesture drawing before I began on it.

I now feel that I am ready to continue the course and plan to begin from the beginning with Lesson One. I'll be posting my results in a few days time I guess. If anyone hasn't heard of it and wants to follow along, you can of course click the link above. You will also need the book below:
I'd like to also take a little time to thank Chris at Go Faster Stripe for his willingness to pay me good money for my 3D modelling skills. I met him earlier today to deliver the yoghurt pot and met his family too, who were very hospitable. I hope you enjoyed The Sound of Music, Chris. God only knows how many times you have been forced to see it!

Going Potty...for Money!

Whilst the animation may be the most basic that it possibly could be, I thought I would share my yoghurt pot with you since I haven't had much else to put on here!

As you can see, it's basically just the same Muller Light pot I made for that job interview, but with a few changes. It's now called "Herring Light" as the comedian for whom it is for is called Richard Herring. There are many other changes, but they are too small to see on the YouTube video.

Drawing up Business

It seems that some good has come from my failed 3D modeller interview. A guy called Chris saw the yoghurt pots I made and has commissioned me to make a similar thing for a comedy DVD. His company is called Go Faster Stripe and the DVD is for a comedian called Richard Herring.

Hopefully Chris will be impressed with what I produce for him and might be willing to pass on my name to anyone else requiring something similar (or indeed anything artistic!). To that end, I have made a business card, which I have put at the side of this blog (under my "About Me" section) for anyone who would like to recommend me. You can click on it to bring up a larger version so it can be printed out and given to all your friends and colleagues!

A Drawing Workout...at Work

In the absence of paid animation work, I'm still temping...which sucks. I even got told off for spending thirty seconds drawing a small face on a Post-It pad. However on Friday the boss was away so I drew away (almost) to my heart's content. First I just drew a character called Eric, which I spent way too much time shading!
Since I know it's good to practice "proper" drawing skills, even when you are just doodling, I drew this:
and this:
While they may not be perfect, I'm pretty pleased with them because I drew them from my imagination, which I could never have done a short while ago.

Eye Eye

It seems that my interest in learning animation has brushed off on my girlfriend Sian. She has spent the last couple of hours working on her first animation. Since she is good at drawing eyes, she decided to try to do a blinking eye. Here is the result:
As you can tell, it was done in Flash, but animated traditionally. I think it's fantastic - especially considering that it is her first attempt at animating. Maybe we can start our own studio!

Experiencing Problems

If the past few weeks has taught me one thing (as if I didn't know it already), it's that job hunting is pretty demoralising. I found out yesterday that I didn't get the 3D modeller job. Apparently they were impressed with what I could do but wanted someone with more experience. Since I have never come across a job in that field that didn't require experience, how is one supposed to gain some?

Well hopefully more opportunities will come along soon. My girlfriend Sian and I are aiming to one day emmigrate to the US, but from what we can work out we need to gain at least two years experience in a "skilled" job in order to get a green card. While I could gain experience in the subject I'm trained in (Physics), I would rather get it in something that I really want to do. So if any of you in the animation business have any advice for me on careers, please let me know by emailing me at andylatham82@hotmail.com
To cheer myself up, I did some more gesture drawings, so here they are.
As usual, they are of a varying standard. Hopefully with a bit more practice I can become more consistent.

Am I Improving?

I thought I would share some more gesture drawings with you. I should really be practicing my drawing every day, but I have been a bit lazy lately. Anyway, here's what I did this evening.
The ones on the far left and the far right are a little out of proportion I think, but I'm reasonably pleased with them all as a whole. I feel like it's starting to feel more natural to draw like this, but I'm unsure whether I'm getting any better yet.