More Pixie and Dixie

Hey, everyone. I bring you another Eisenberg study.


I wanted to try something a little different here. Instead of actually copying the entire drawing down with 100% accuracy, I wanted to make my copy seem a bit better than the original, which was the key thing for me to remember as I did my version.

Eisenberg is a true genius of cartooning and I don't want to make it seem as if I'm a better drawer than he is, which I'm totally not, but I felt like I could top his drawing a little by fixing a couple of subtle things. They're pretty much just different placements of objects in certain specific positions that would make the entire drawing read more clear.

I jotted those changes I wanted to make down on my paper:

1. I wanted to make the cowboy seem more proud that he's riding Mr. Jinx than how he's originally portrayed. He seems pretty happy that he was able to ride a cat, with him being a mouse and all, so I really wanted to make that stand out.

2. Make Pixie and Dixie's head less cramped together. Eisenberg, I'd imagine, had to do it like that in order for the other cat's word bubble to appear in the panel, but since I was excluding the word bubbles in my copy I figured I'd make both there heads seem less cramped together so that they both read clearer.

3. Adding more of of a curve to Mr. Jinx's line of action so that his pose had a bit more life into it. I also figured that that would add to more to the cowboy mouse's proudness.

Here's how I did the step by step procedure:

First I put down the general forms. All the characters together create one big shape. The chair was made into another.

I also added the lines that shape the wall and the floor and the two cats' line of action were added.

I checked them in PS and fixed the proportions

I then added the general construction of all the characters, but I still kept in mind of all the little subtle changes I wanted to make.

The muzzles, ears, hat, tail, arms, legs, hands, feet and fur of both cats are sub forms for their general construction.



I fixed my proportions and made the drawing a bit more tighter. I also added more details to the chair and mice

I put both saddles and straps on the two cats and added Mr. Jinx's bow tie.

Here I raised Mr. Jinx's bum more up so that his line of action could curve more and moved Pixie's head a slightly bit to the right from Dixie's.

I elongated the cowboy mouse's body to add more to his pride and tilted his head a little upward.

I still kept in mind that the construction and placement of the objects that weren't changed had to be accurate to the original and that the things that I changed had to fit with the construction of the characters in the original, except for the elongation I added to the cowboy mouses torso.


I fixed what I needed fixing and added the final details to the cats like eyes, nose, muzzle, fur, tie, ears, hands and feet. I forgot the other cats tail in this one.

I added arms and legs to all the mice.



fixed proportions


I notice when I finish a drawing that perspective is one of my biggest flaws.

As I kept building each character in my Eisenberg copy I noticed how Eisenberg doesn't keep the perspective on certain objects constrained. Well he does, but not by normal perspective standards. It's cartoon perspective, but with control. He knows how each object and character is rounded according to both real life perspective and cartoon perspective.

That's how I see it at least.



I build more details to all the mice as I continue to fix certain things.

I noticed Dixie's head is a lot more angular and Pixie's is more circular. That helps me realize that they don't look exactly alike. There are subtle differences in there head shapes (and eye shapes) that makes them seem more different from one another so they won't look like exact copies of each other.


And here's the final piece. I was able to arch more Mr. Jinx's line of action, show more pride in the cowboy mouse, and get rid of the cramped space between Pixie and Dixie's head.

I changed eye directions for both Pixie and Dixie so that one is looking directly at the cowboy and the other is looking directly at the saddle on Mr. Jinx.

I feel like everything now seems more clear while it still retains the same feel that the original gives.


There are, of course, some little mistakes in proportion like Pixie's head being little bit squashed on the right side as well as Dixie's, but other than that I think it came out fine.


Tell me what you think! I f you didn't understand something let me know and feel free to critique this.

I think I'm going to do a much more harder drawing for the next one. One with a good sense of perspective.