This is one of my favorite scenes from this cartoon! The animation is incredible! Especially when he swings the axe around and the axe gets right in your face. Looks amazing! Really inspiring stuff!
I got this image from John's blog. I think this was a key pose in the cartoon, but I'm not sure. I still think it was pretty good to copy from.
So here we go! Verbal analysis:
*His snout area really sticks out *Long torso *Big wolf feet *Big bushy tail *Right arm longer than left arm *Big foreshortened axe
I tried emphasizing those observations a bit more. Trying to make the pose more expressive than the original.
*EDIT* I tried to fix the mistakes I had on the previous drawings. The fixed versions are underneath each one of the storyboard sketches. Let me know what you think! I'd like to hear some feedback!
Hey, I'm back! And it's been forever.
Here's some Slab practices so I can try to maintain the guts of the characters from the storyboard sketch. Right now I feel like I got a long way to go for me to start staging characters within backgrounds, so I figured I'd practice doing some more of these until I get good enough with actual layout making.
*FIXED*
*OLD*
The Slab on top came out pretty good I think. I made his head and cheek area a bit slender. I could've moved the head a bit to the right more and also add more tilt. I do like how the perspective on his feet came out though.
*FIXED*
*OLD*
I tried pushing his pose a bit further in the top one. I could've added more perspective in the head by making it smaller while his body is more closer and bigger towards us. I noticed I strectched out the arm that connects to the big fist too much. Gotta fix that.
*FIXED*
*OLD*
This Donald Bastard was fun to do. I like that I added more perspective on his feet to make his stance seem more balanced. I could've made his arm on the right a bit bigger for it to seem more solid and have his hat stretched out a bit on top, but I had to cramp it a bit for it to fit on the page. I'll fix it though.
Hey, everyone! Happy New year! Hope your holidays were nice!
Here's my take on the Slab's First Fist layout exercise.
Hope these are okay. They aren't fully cleaned up though.
I wanted to see if I was going in the right direction before I kept going and wanted to hear everyone's thoughts.
I tried maintaining the guts on some of these from the storyboards. I think overall I did fine. There are some problems I noticed like some things are slightly toned down and I had some problems spacing the characters within the background like the ladder being to close to Ernie as well as too close to the edge of the paper.
I also tried maintaining a good flow between each pose so that they consecutively flip properly.
I remember reading a post that John did in his blog about how Irv Spence designed the eyes on some Tex Avery characters where their eyes don't follow the center line on the head without making them look flat. Here's the post I'm talking about.
I tried dong so with Slab and Ernie's eyes in most of these layouts so to attract the viewer to their expression in their eyes like the one Ernie has above, which I think was John's intention when he did the storyboard.
Doing this also helped the drawing retain the guts from the storyboard drawing.
With this last layout below I analyzed from the storyboard drawings that these last poses took up almost the whole spacing of the BG, so this is the layout I drew first while I visually planned out how the other poses from the other storyboard drawings would fit into that final spacing of the BG.
As I did the other layouts, little by little I started changing certain things in the BG like raising the top bed for Slab's big fist to fit in better or adjusting the steps on the ladder, so that all the poses read clearly alone as well as read clearly and make sense within the background.
I don't know if that was exactly the correct way to go about it, but it seemed to make sense to me.
Let me know what you think! If anything doesn't make sense let me know.
I tried to do the rubbery feel in the lines with this Popeye toy I drew down below.
I probably didn't pull it off too well. It feels kinda realistic to me. I was tempted to put in some shading, but didn't.
I think I added way too much lumpiness and wrinkles in his pants and legs.
I tried making the lines feel like rubber by making certain objects swoop into other objects without connecting lines like his right eye and his hand holding the spinach.
I do like how the torso area came out.
I think I was also able to put in the planes you were asking for, John, like in the cuffs, tugged in shirt, and the tips of the shoes.
It was pretty hard to do, but managed to learn a few things I guess.
Hello! I've done two copies of some Baby Huey comic book covers.
Here I wanted to feel the drawing out and combine that with my knowledge of the drawing principles so that my copy can look and feel as good or better than the original.
I tried to remember that certain contrasting objects should stand out more so they can accentuate the focal point better.
Below I mapped out some construction.
I should've included the guy's floating hat to show the overall shape.
Baby Huey is huge so I wanted to slightly exaggerate certain features he had to really show his hugeness.
I exaggerated his tummy area making it bigger and rounder, made his head a bit bigger and shortened his legs a bit.
He's not the focal point though. The big tire is what draws our attention the most, so I made it bigger than how it's originally shown.
I also took consideration of the proportions in the original so that my copy won't look too different from the original.
I accentuated the tire more by adding a farther perspective to the front of the car and made the duck guy driving it smaller.
I really wanted to instantly send the message that a big baby has immensely blown into a tire of a car that's smaller than him, which basically is telling you that he's a big strong baby and accidentally blew the tire too big.
This was a really good practice for accentuating the focal point while other objects surrounding it support it. This way I think made my copy look and feel as good or better than the original.
Below is the final drawing next to the original for comparison.
There's some stuff that needs some fixing.
I think I made the part of the tube in between his mouth and hand a bit too thick.
Raise the duck guy's hat a bit up so that the overall shape of the entire thing can be more noticeable.
Probably turn BH's head slightly more inward to his left side so that he's looking more directly at the tire.
I could've made the rear end of the car smaller to accentuate more the tire.
Other than that I think it came okay.
On this second one below I didn't really accentuate too much of anything here, but I did want it to feel and seem as good as the original.
Here's the final
The feel is pretty much there but I did tone down some things.
I made the ball on the ground a bit too small and tones down the focal point, which is the ball itself.
I could've thinned out a bit BH's neck and make it a bit longer
Made the truck seem more slim than the original in the body.
What I've done here is basically the same thing I did to the last Pixie and Dixie drawing:
-Make my copy better than the original
-and slightly change certain specific features on the characters so that their actions, along with their emotions, can stand out more.
This one was kinda tricky for me though, because I hardly couldn't find anything that I wanted to change from the original. To me the original is perfect the way it is.
But I figured I'd try doing some changes to it, so It seemed like a good challenge.
There was one thing that stood out for me as far as wanting to slightly change something from the original, and that was Tom's head. Not the head alone, but the placement of the head.
In the original he looks content, relaxed. Sitting next to the fire, catching its warmth, while knowing that there's peace between him and his two micey brethren.
So in order for me to make that emotion stand out more I had to change some of Tom's physical features.
1. I wanted his head slightly moved up at a northwest angle so it can seem less cramped next to the fireplace.
2. Elongate his neck more so that his shoulders seem more relaxed.
These changes, I thought, would add more to Tom's relaxed state.
So here's how I did the entire thing.
First, I put the overall shape where all the characters would fit in and added the fireplace.
I fixed my proportions and perspective (shown below), and added the construction to all the the characters. I also kept in mind of the small changes I wanted to make.
I added more to the fireplace for more solidity and added the overall shape of the logs. The pipe and pillow were also added.
I tighten the drawing more (below) and add more of the secondary features to the characters and objects.
I add perspective lines to where the bricks will be placed.
I continue adding more details to the characters (below), finishing up with Tom.
I put in the overall shape of the fire inside the fireplace and add the overall shapes of the fire and smoke coming out of the two ends of the pipe.
I fixed my proportions, add the final details, and here's the final copy shown below
Some parts look fairly accurate, but I think I made a lot of errors here.
Proportions are slightly wrong in some areas, especially Tom's head. The shape seems a bit more obscured than the original. Almost stretched I think.
I don't think I added more to Tom's relaxed state too. I think I just made his neck longer while everything else still feels the same. Now It just seems like he's trying to catch more of the fire's warmth.
I think I should've just relaxed more his shoulders, making them slightly less rounded at top, with no long neck and head being in the same place like in the original.
The rest of the errors are kinda minuscule:
-I made Tom's eybrows a bit too bushy.
-Made Jerry's head too circular. It's actually slightly egg-shaped.
-Had to make Jerry's belly more round
-Made Tuffy's nose the same size as Jerry's.
-Smoothed out Tom's torso where the bump is, where part of his rib sticks out
-Move the line on the backside of the pipe a little to the left.
I don't know, I might be wrong about this. I'd like to hear what you think.
