I chose a simpler character today, and was able to draw more than usual. I numbered the drawings in the order I did them, and it’s interesting to see that the line quality got better, then worse, and then better again.

I like these drawings because I enjoyed drawing them a lot, but there’s a lot of wobbly, hairy lines I don’t like. They are bigger than I usually draw too, which is promising. I really can’t wait until I can draw every line confidently and accurately. Time will only tell. Out of these I like 3, 4, and 9 the best.

Today I met up with a good friend of mine. I haven’t seen him in at least fifteen years, and it had been far too long. My folks pulled him out of an old box in the attic, and asked if I still wanted him, to which I replied, “Heck yeah!”  Twenty years ago this guy was my best friend, and I took him everywhere. Never mind that Teddy (Rupskin?) look-a-like, my talking Mickey was the real deal. As you can see he’s covered in all sorts of wear and tear that proves that we had some amazing adventures. Even though he always told me the same story, I could listen to him over and over…and I did.

If I remember correctly, the story had something to do with a treasure, and a swamp monster. Pluto was there (I almost got the Pluto doll as well). One day I’ll have to listen to the tape again and reminisce. The title on the cassette tape, “The Impossible Journey,” is quite vague, and doesn’t jog any memories even though I listened to the damn thing a thousand times.

Hey look! I notice a very very slight improvement in the line quality. Can you see it? Look real hard…Don’t see it? Try looking at them with your peripheral vision.

In all seriousness these do look a lot more solid than my previous attempts. This little guy is a real bugger to draw, and there’s a lot going on in the ones where he’s in drag. I have a long way to go, and there are a lot of errors I can spot in these, but I won’t bog myself down with those right now. I’ll work on those tomorrow.

I’ve been totally consumed with my work that I just realized The Princess and the Frog is fast approaching. It’s currently sitting at a solid 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.com. I’ll probably see it on December 12th, but I have to say that while I’m extremely excited, I’m also a little nervous for it. I really hope it does well despite not being into the whole princess fairy tale thing as much as the “buddy picture” thing (Jungle Book, 101 Dalmations).

RT has also put together a nice countdown that ranks all of Disney animated features. I pretty much agree with all the rankings, aside from maybe Sleeping Beauty. I think that is ranked too high.

Congratulations to all the artists at Disney, and I wish you all the luck in the world. You guys must be shitting your pants right now. My thoughts are mainly with the newer artists that are experiencing this for the first time. People like Mario Furmanczyk, Jennifer Hager, and Lorelay Bove. You young guns must really be on the edges of your seats!

I don’t know about you, but for me, drawing has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do. My whole life I’ve been able to put my mind to anything and be good at it in a respectable amount of time. Whether it was a sport, a game, a job, or any number of other tasks, I could just do it. That’s not to say I’m amazing, I prefer the humble road most days. But is drawing really this hard? I realize there are people that it comes naturally to (I hate you). But I’m beginning to think the world is playing a cruel joke on me. How can I want this so bad, and at the same time struggle with it so much?

There are days when drawing comes more naturally than others. Days where I have a sense of flow I just don’t have other days. But those days are rare. Most days I have to really fight and struggle to get what’s in my head out of my hand and onto the page. I literally have to talk my way through the construction of a drawing (out loud!). My lines look like chicken scratch, I can’t draw a circle to save my life, and it goes all down hill from there. Where do you get motivation from starting off like that?

Well, if I wasn’t such a stubborn bastard, I’d have quit this art game not long after I started. If I didn’t have this burning desire in me to be good at this one day (I must be insane), I’d let every shitty drawing ruin my day. I am in the really crappy learning phase, filled with mostly plateaus, and every time I produce a (bad) drawing, I look at it and say to myself, “It’s a “learning” drawing,” or, “Only 98,000 bad drawings to go…” at least according to Chuck Amuck…

Today (obviously) was a hard drawing day for me. I had to wrestle for the better part of two hours to get these four drawings out of me:

What’s frustrating for me is I have no idea what that means. You see, I work alone on this stuff.  So I don’t know how bad that is. How far I have to go before this crap sinks in and becomes “second nature” like I keep reading on all these blogs. I have no peers around me to guide me, and learn from. That’s where school is invaluable. But that’s not an option for at least another year. So tell me, how long did you have to wrestle with this stuff before you got it down? Do you wrestle with it often? Do you have good and bad days? Am I normal?

I realize I will be struggling with this stuff my whole life, and I’m cool with that. But I’d like to hear other people’s stories as well.

Post a comment and let me know.

Ever watch this show? I find it mildly entertaining in a cheesy sort of way.

Here’s some stuff from tonight. *Shudder*

After watching Pete Emslie’s videos for the fifth time, I’ve decided I should be focusing on drawing bigger. Most of the drawings I post here are around 6 inches tall at the most. In an effort to increase my line quality, and to be able to create nice sweeping confident looking lines, I’m going to slowly work my way up to a page per drawing size like my life drawing.

Tomorrow I’ll start working on a new Maya animation of a basic jump (I’d like to get some practice in with a character before I go for an acting scene). Hopefully I’ll have something to post tomorrow.

Here’s a couple of bouncing balls I did today to brush up on Maya. One is a light rubber ball, while the other is a bowling ball. I can’t figure out what I don’t like about them (aside from the obvious lack of rotation which I don’t care about) so I’ll just post them and look at them later with fresh eyes.

Bouncing Balls

And here are some bouncing balls from my days at AAU.

So this is what I’ve been studying for the last few months trying to understand cartoon construction. This is as per the recommendation of John K on his blog. It can be found in pieces all over the internet, but I find PDFs more convenient. You’re going to have to print it anyway to study, so you might as well just download one file! Enjoy, this book is amazing.

Preston Blair’s Advanced Animation

P.S – I didn’t even compile this, a friend of mine did. I’m just passing it on because I like to share. Credit goes where it’s due (you know who you are, and thank you!)

Check out Steve White’s latest post on building empathy for your main characters when they aren’t exactly model citizens. It’s a gem!

A lot harder to draw than he looks. I’m starting to loosen up a bit…

Model Sheet:

From earlier in the day (struggling):