trying to get organic drawings

my anxious attempt in organic drawings
later I will do an analysis

From Stiff to Organic. The learning period compared to the confident period

I suggest (if you don't already) supplementing your cartoon studies with some life drawing. (I know this is a photo, not a live model)

Why should you?

Because when studying Preston Blair type construction - made of spheres and pear shapes, there is a tendency for some cartoonists to think cartoon characters are made up of balls piled on top of each other. Or they draw the balls and pears too mechanical and not organic enough.

Also another point: THE STIFF PERIOD OF LEARNING
Any time you learn a new concept, when you actually first try to draw it you will probably be very stiff, because you haven't practiced the concept enough for it to sink in. This is the tough period of learning anything.

Drawing 1 - STIFF, study drawing. Slow and careful, grinding my teeth

When I first drew this guy, I slowly, carefully blocked in the construction first - having to think about the types of shapes that make up a strong man. I couldn't use balls and pears because real life is made up of more complex parts. They are still solid forms, but bendable solid forms. They are complex organic forms.

Once I finished the first drawing, I knew a lot of things I didn't know before: How the traps are shaped on one side compared to the other in a 3/4 pose. What biceps look like from 2 different angles in relaxed mode. How the biceps fit next to the triceps and the space between.

How muscles weave in and out of each other under the skin. The feeling of flesh, not just the wooden proportions of man.

How the 6 pack works as a whole unit before it's split into parts

How big pecs hang in repose (it's very important to know this, especially for you girls)

etc.

Drawing 2 - Looser yet still solid, more organic and confident, more fun to domy conservative attempt at Chloe's style

Then I redrew the drawing faster and looser - while still trying to keep all the forms solid, but to make them less stiff, more flowing: more ORGANIC

Some artists go too far in the direction of organic lines and get wobbly formless characters. Some are too stiff and get mechanical characters.
Ever see those Gene Deitch Tom and Jerrys made in the 60s in eastern europe? They are a total misunderstanding of the 40s American animation style. The characters are drawn stiff and move stiff. They look like they are made of badly drawn balls stacked on top of each other. Here's a weird combination of wobbly and stiff at the same time. That's an achievement! Whenever anyone draws Tom and Jerry now, they give them these bulbous balls for toes and they never had that in the original cartoons.

The trick to good drawing is to combine solidity with fluidity. And life.

You have to look at both sides of an object (say a bicep) and draw the whole form, not two lines on either side. Look at the form inside the lines.

I made a mistake that I warn everyone else about: the side of the man's head that is closer to us (on the right) is too cramped. I squashed the space between his face and cranium. Lots of us have that problem.

Preston Blair Forms don't work for everything!
I saw one student's attempt at caricatures and he was trying to construct them as if they were Preston Blair forms.

That doesn't work.

When you draw from life- DRAW WHAT YOU SEE

Don't try to impose what you think things are supposed to look like. We aren't made of balls and pears. Only cartoon characters are.

What you learn from drawing from life and using your eyes to observe new things can then be applied to your cartoon drawings in simplified form.

Very Organic and Solid Preston Blair FormsThese drawings are not remotely realistic. They have no real anatomy. They are entirely made up of animated cartoon forms - spheres and pears. Yet they don't look mechanical and they are full of life.

That's because they obey some principles of reality. They are organic and solid at the same time. Asymmetrical in a natural way. They have weight. They are not robotic.

See how the arms wrap around that log? They are flattened at the bottom, but bulge out at the top where they are not being compressed against anything. That makes sense and makes the drawing believable and alive.You can really feel this drawing of Tom smashing into the log. It makes sense. It isn't random distortion.

It's organic and solid at the same time - and obeys some expected sense of physics.

Don't draw stiff (except when learning and you can't help it). Don't draw wobbly. Aim at drawing convincing solid organic life.

another attempt at Kaspar

Analysis:






I think this is better, at least I feel it that way
what do you think John?

loosening up Kaspar

another version of Kaspar more freely


Update:

Another Kaspar

The lasts analysis of the bulldog and Kaspar byu John really made the things much more clear.
Here's a drawing that I did of Kaspar following john's lessons.


Analysis:

My attempt:

Shit! Now that I put this drawing her I realize that I evened out the sizes!
I will continue anyway...


I also see that the stall must be bigger and it's in a wrong angle.

Some good BG layouts

These are drawn by someone who has actually drawn in nature and then found ways to simplify what he saw into cartoony shapes.
A lot of people since learend to draw BGs by copying these types, instead of going outside to see what things really look like. Over decades, copies of copies of copies have led to a degradation in drawing ability.
It's good to copy these to see how this artist solved the problem of simplifying natural forms, but then go out and look at nature and see if you can simplify it in your own way.

KåspäR

Here's my first attempt at Kåspär.


I pretty much ruined the shape. His was more soild and had more distinct edges. I've turned it into a circle with more evened out edges.

I equal fail again.


BUt I'll keep trying.

Analyze the Statement First

Before you start even analyzing mechanically how a drawing works, look at it and FEEL IT.

What is it saying? Once you feel it, then go ahead and use the analytic tools to do your copy.

Anything you do that distracts from that pure statement is a mistake.

Don't add lumps to it,
don't change the direction.
Don't fill in negative shapes that help make the statement read.
Don't have cramped areas of detail.
Don't add big lumps and wavy parts.

Halfway isn't a Contrast. Observe the contrasts, say them out loud, then write them down before drawing

If a detail crosses a character in the middle - or halfway, it has no contrast. It's even.

50-50 is not a contrast.

60-40 is a slight contrast. You can caricature 60-40, by making 70-30. Get it?


My drawings naturally tend to have strong conrasts, so you don't need to push them much further. But you do have to preserve the obvious and most important parts.

Obvious contrasts in this drawing:

1) Very long arm. It's about 1.5 times the length that he is tall
2) The arm is high up-IT'S NOT IN THE MIDDLE
3) His belly fur is a triangular shape that tapers towars the bottom
4) His face is up high on his head
5) His face is high up
6) His nose is big compared to his little eyes
7) He has tiny ears

Now if Paul had written all that down before drawing he probably would not have drawn this:

Every one of the contrasts I listed above have been lessened.
His arm is shorter
It's lower down on his body - APPROACHING THE MIDDLE
His face is bigger in comparison to his body - LESS CONTRAST
etc.

He noticed some of these problems but didn't write them down.
Instead he just tried to copy the drawing again and made the same mistakes, but not as severely


And he added some more mistakes.
The belly shape splits his body exactly in half now. 50-50. NO CONTRAST

The legs have lost their bell-bottom shapes
The other arm is up too high, it was low in my drawing - which CONTRASTED with the higher longer arm that is pointing

KEEP FORMS SIMPLE AND SOLID-DON'T ADD LUMPS AND WAVY PARTS

Negative shapes have been filled in (between his legs)
Lumps have been added. Lumps take away from the overall statement.
He also has some wobbly shapes - like the feet.

Let's not draw details anymore until we can get the main points-the overall emotional statement and contrasts

first studies of KASPAR!

http://cartooncollege.blogspot.com/2009/10/analyze-with-word-before-you-start.html?zx=2b6e34ca162ed0d0

these are my first tries of Kaspar..

I am still very impressed with Vincent Waller's drawings... he doesn't toned down anything.

I just wanted to share this with you, I will go back to practice the backgrounds as sugested by Mr. John K.

tchau

John Notes:

You want details to be funny, but not to cut into or distract from the bigger forms.

Kaspar has unruly fur in my drawings and we want to preserve that but still have it make sense and not draw attention away from THE STATEMENT.

Background Studies

One thing I've always been terrible at is backgrounds, so I decided to study and practice. Talk about stiffness! I'm starting with this book about my homeland. When you see a whole scene like this, it's so filled with detail and information that it's hard to know where to start.I'll try to analyze what makes a tree recognizeable:

1) its overall shape
2) the pattern or structure of its branches and leaves - now I can see this in the picture above, but I don't know how to put it into words or even form a mental picture of its general form. Aaargh!

here are my first scratchy quick studies of random stuff outta the book.
I tried to get simple structures that looked like the trees without having every leaf drawn. It's not easy. I want to find cartoony ways to stylize the shapes and patterns that look fun and confident. I sure am not there yet.



I couldn't resist drawing that crawfish and the kid around it. It's an interesting bunch of angles, and not what you usually see in a cartoon because of the difficult point of view.
I like these flowers a lot. They look simple on the surface:

1) They have an easy to see overall form-long s curved frond shapes.
2) They have a pattern of details that follow the frond shape.
The pattern is made of the rows of flowers that are neatly lined up perpendicular to the waving stem.

I see it easily, but it's another thing to try and draw it so it looks good.
I gave up on that one.
Here's a nice winter scene that has some trees that have very bold shapes.

Their patterns and textures are much harder to decipher.

I made a mess of the composition and evened out all the sizes. It's very frustrating that I can feel the way the needles on the tree branch out and are weighed down by the snow. They are definitely making a very noticeable general pattern, but I can't figure out how to translate it.I would suggest to everyone to not neglect how things other than characters look. If you have a park nearby or scenic area, grab your pads and get out there and do some sketches. Squint your eyes when you look at the scenes and try to decipher the overall big shapes and forms first. Then fill them in with descending levels of patterns.

Try to notice the different shapes that different species of trees take. Many cartoonists like me have stock cartoon trees in our heads and we just draw the same one over and over again, which is lazy and boring.

The world is full of visual interest that can be cartooned. Get out there and look at it. Don't just learn what a tree and a cloud looks like from the comics. There's more variety in real life.