Cartoon Blues

I've been studying Disney animators from the 30s as of late (Ub Iwerks, Fred Moore, Bill Tytla). It's one of those oddities where I'm discovering more of my cartooning roots after the fact, by looking at their drawings and thinking to myself, "Wait a minute, I kind of draw like that." The characters in their drawings are prime examples of construction, expression, and line that really appeal to me. The Fleischer style has been on my radar since college, but not until recently have I been delving into the early Disney artists.

Today I was flipping through Treasures of Disney Animation Art , a huge book my parents got me when I was 12 or so. It was weird—like I discovered Goofy again for the first time. I find his design very appealing...more complex than Mickey and the like which is probably why he appeared later. Goofy is definitely one of the stranger Disney creations, especially in his original form before he got more polished up (I'm a fan of the purple shiny-eyelid Goofy). So, I've been hitting the sketchbook.


Above is a study of a drawing by clean-up artist Dick Huemer from Lonesome Ghosts (1937). The construction of his face appears complex at first glance, but it can be broken down into simple organic shapes that wrap around each other.


And here, a study of a drawing by clean-up artist Art Babbit from Moving Day (1936). I love how low his head droops in this moment of the walk cycle. This is trademark Goofy—there's tons of personality conveyed in just this one drawing.

I recently borrowed a DVD from a from a friend that featured all sorts of Ub Iwerks cartoons. I'm drawn to the simplicity of his characters, because they also have a ton of personality. Below are some drawings I did of freeze frames from Ali Baba (1936).


This character is so rubbery and loose, packed with energy and movement. I especially like how Ub draws hands—big and bendy.

And finally, below are some original characters I drew with the same non-photo blue pencil. This charming specimen of a woman:


And a possible suitor?

Thirsty?

Here's a little guy in desperate need of a drink. These are keyframes from a series of short animations I've been working on for the past month or so. On a tip from Sherm Cohen, I've been playing around with a fabulous digital painting app called Art Rage. It's basically an easy-to-use stripped down version of Painter, offering up only a dozen tools...and it's only $25! I couldn't recommend it more. In approaching the design, I thought it would be fun to step away from the vector traps of Flash for a bit to create something more painterly. To add further texture, I scanned in some watercolor spatter paintings, and composited the final image in Photoshop.


Best of all, I got to do my first painted close-up (often used in animation to show more detail than the typical cel will allow). Added bonus: a gross close-up! I sort of had Clint Eastwood in mind, left stranded in the desert in The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly (chapped lips included!). I'll likely post more from this series when the project wraps up.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I can remember the first time I saw a commercial for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon; I was probably in 2nd or 3rd grade. They kept the turtles in silhouette...laughing and cracking jokes—keeping it very mysterious. Like most 9 year-old boys at the time, I loved the show immediately when it aired. But it never occurred to me to try drawing them until I watched my classmates doodling away. I definitely enjoyed drawing before then, but I don't remember making such an effort until I started drawing Ninja Turtles. I was surprised at how easily it came, and how much fun it was to write and draw my own stories. As I got better, the net effect was even more rewarding. And I haven't stopped drawing since.

So, the Turtles have always carried with them a certain nostalgia for me. And I'd like to spend this post walking you through some more artwork (see earlier post) I found over Christmas.


Here's a group drawing from 1990. I had probably been drawing them for a year or two by this point. This picture was taped above my bed—my bed, by the way, was fitted with Ninja Turtle sheets and I had all four stuffed animals. Not to mention the toys...OH, the toys!


Here's another from a year later...I had moved to drawing with a pen. This replaced the previous drawing above my bed.


By 4th grade, I discovered that there were Ninja Turtle comic books which predated and spawned the TV series. I learned that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird where the guys who created the Turtles, and that the comics had a slightly different look. I was trying to capture that style in the above drawing of Leonardo.

Below are a bunch more drawings from 1991-93:


I must've been working on shading here (thus the sun as a light source).


Ha! A meaner looking Turtle...there might've been a rogue turtle named Slash from the series (don't ask how I remember this stuff).


I took a crack at a sewer background in this one.
Raphael was always my favorite of the bunch.


This drawing of Leonardo is on yellow scratch paper, so I must've drawn it in study hall (I'm in middle school at this point).

Now, my days drawing the Turtles were twofold. I worked hard at learning how to draw them in various poses, but I also came up with my own spin-offs—pretty much all things ninja and mutant related. I spent the better part of elementary school making my own comic books.


The first spin-off was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Creatures. I figured, why stop with turtles? I created mutant versions of a bull, a dolphin, a shark, a lizard, a rhinoceros, a rooster, a goat...it keeps going.


Instead of Shredder, I created a villain named "Tin-Skin."
Good one, Bobby :)


Here's a spread right out of Bobby's Comics Volume #2 (1989)

And then there were the Ninja Blobs! Just cut the animals right out of the equation and make ninjas out of blobs of mutagen. In one comic, I even had the Ninja Creatures team up with the Ninja Blobs.



The final iteration was a story where Ninja Turtle stuffed animals (like my own) came to life! Looking back, this was a way for me to make comics without having to labor over drawing all the complicated muscles and features.




Below is one of the few editions of Bobby's Comics in COLOR! Note, Volume #17! I think this might have been the last one before I dropped the Bobby's Comics publishing name.


By this point I had moved on to drawing in those blank books you can find in art stores. The book is dated 1991-92, so I was 12 years old (6th grade).


And here's a spread. Shredder is miniaturized too...he jumped out of a poster at some point.

So, that about wraps it up! In middle school I started drawing comic strips with truly original characters and stories. As you can see, I definitely got my start as an artist expressing my obsession with the Ninja Turtles in pictures and comics. I spent so much time drawing as a kid, it's hard to imagine a more productive period of my life! Then again, kids do have a ton of time on their hands. I hope this was a fun read for you. I'll be back to posting current work (from 2009) in my next post.

UPDATE: Peter Laird has a blog! Tons, and I mean TONS of original TMNT art. I may have to sit down and sketch some turtles for old times sake. Also, I just added the Teenage Mutant "Wimpy" Turtle pictured below (ha).

Bobby Flynn (1991)

When I was visiting my folks over Christmas, I took a morning to rummage through some of my old artwork which was stowed away in my bedroom closet. More precisely, my parents asked me to clean out my closet (when was the last time you heard THAT?). I was lucky enough to find this, my first "official" sketchbook, from 1991—making me 11 years old at the time. I know this because I dated practically every page of the book—signature included. As you can see here, I very clearly stated the rules of the sketchbook on the inside cover:


1. NO TRACING!!
2. Sketch lightly the(n) press down hard.
3. No ripping pages out!

Simple rules to live by, I suppose. Oh, also good to note that I was known as "Bobby" until I was a senior in high school.


Here is a page dated 1-1-91, New Year's Day! Making the sketch 18 years old to the dot in just a couple days. Entitled, DYING ROBOT. Wow, I was fascinated with characters in desperation even then!


Here is a character I must've been working on named Turtle Tort.


...including a cast of other characters. I don't remember doing anything with them, though. I believe this was when Tiny Toon Adventures was on TV.


Finally, a drawing in colored pencils of Dimension-X...with Leonardo and the Technodrome in silhouette. I'll be doing another post entirely about my obsession with the Ninja Turtles, soon. This sketchbook is loaded with them.

Fast forward to the end of 2008, with 2009 knocking on our door. It's been a great year...thanks to everyone who's been stopping by the blog. Happy New Year!

We'll show YOU naughty...

(click on image to view larger)

Ahhh...the holidays bring out the best in us, don't they?
Funny, I tormented Santa last year too.

Sweet Nectar

Hopefully my last post didn't throw you too much.
Back to creatures and cartoons!

Favorite Music of 2008

2008 was an interesting year for me, musically speaking. I found myself at the beginning of the year catching up with albums I missed out on from previous years. The likes of which included Justice's Cross, LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, and Jim Noir's Tower of Love. It was also a year where I spent more time scrounging around mp3 blogs, resulting in my iPod filling up with singles and tracks instead of albums. So, I found myself in the past couple of weeks struggling to come up with a solid Top 10 list of albums—specifically having difficulty filling the #10 slot. The two major disappointments of the year for me have been Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping and Kanye West's 808's and Heartbreaks. The later is growing on me a bit as of late, but I still don't think it deserves a spot in an official Top 10. Even stranger, Los Campesinos!, which you will soon find is easily my favorite act of the year, released a second album only months ago, We Are Beautiful, We are Doomed...which I find nearly as impressive as their debut album. I don't know the official rules of Top 10 lists (venturing into obnoxious territory here), but I'm pretty sure it would be weird to put two albums by the same artist in one list.

ANYWAY, all that rambling is just a big excuse for what I'm calling a Top 9 list of albums. To fill in the gap of the missing #10 slot, I've decided to drop a bunch of songs on you as well. I'm not doing a write-up this year on each album, but consider it safe that I heartily recommend all this music for anyone who is looking for a change of pace.

TOP 9 Album Picks:

1. Los Campesinos!: Hold On Now, Youngster
2. Marnie Stern: This Is It...
3. Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
4. Born Ruffians: Red, Yellow, and Blue
5. The Dodos: Visiter
6. High Places: 03/07 - 09/07
7. Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
8. TV on the Radio: Dear Science
9. Atlas Sound: Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

Top 5 Songs:

1. "Ruler" - Marnie Stern
2. "White Winter Hymnal" - Fleet Foxes
3. "Fools" - The Dodos
4. "Paranoid" - Kanye West
5. "Water Curses" - Animal Collective

and a smattering of other great tracks and singles from the year:

"Single Ladies" - Beyoncé
"No One Does It Like You" - In Ear Park
"Toe Jam (Featuring David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal)" - The BPA
"Knickerbocker" - Fujiya & Miyagi
"Walking On A Dream" - Empire of the Sun
"Cranes And Cranes And Cranes and Cranes" - Johnny Foreigner
"In the New Year" - The Walkmen
"Little Bit" - Lykke Li
"5 Years Time" - Noah and The Whale
"Jitterkadie" - Death Vessel
"Arrows of Eros" - Golden Silvers
"RR vs D" - Au
"Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" - She & Him
"Bruises" - Chairlift
"With Handclaps" - Y'all is Fantasy Island
"Machine In The Ghost" - The Faint

Feel free to leave comments (ideally, with your own best of lists!)

UPDATE:

(Favorite Albums of 2007)
(Favorite Albums of 2006)

Striking Gold

On the topic of difficulties drawing the opposite sex, it occurred to me that I enjoy drawing bratty girls. But I'm not sure that counts. I don't have a sister, but it must've rubbed off on me from all the cartoons and movies I've digested over the years that older sisters are mean and younger sisters are mischievous and annoying. Which to me equals FUNNY. My favorite girl character I've come up with so far (by far) is Goldisocks. I think she is more nuanced than the typical bratty stereotype—she's downright charming and adorable if you ask me! I caught her in a bad mood today, maybe because of the holidays.

She was just as much fun to draw again now, and she wouldn't have been made possible without the help of Sharon Emerson and an ever so beautiful voice.

I've posted before about Goldi here, but for those of you who missed out, take this short science game/fable for a spin. I hope a bunch of kids learned about the difference between heat and temperature by watching this :)


--> Play Goldisocks

Makes me want some porridge!

UPDATE:

I just dug up a scan of my original concept sketch. Somehow the paper copy got lost. Glad to see the uni-brow was in there from the start.

A Predicament

A little something new...

I prefer to think of style as something that is constantly evolving and not a conscious effort. You fall into habits and typically draw what you know. Lately, I've been thinking about what I'm not good at drawing—for new territory to explore. I've never been particularly happy with my ability to draw girls or women. But I've always admired all these cartoonists and animators that can whip out fun girl characters (both past and contemporary), so I'm studying. Here's an early design, definitely inspired by what I've been looking at...hopefully with a twist of something that is my own. Weird, because I started out saying that style shouldn't be conscious, but sometimes you need to dive in and see where it takes you. That's how you grow as an artist, anyway.