As you can tell from this lopsided sketch of my Dad, I haven’t had much time to soak up the knowledge contained in Tom Richmond’s “The Mad Art of Caricature,” but hey, it just showed up in my mailbox tonight. On first skim, however, it’s clear that it’s really going to help me step up my game. Besides being packed with all sorts of caricature drawing theory, it tackles the fundamentals of anatomy–obviously the subject of countless books, but presented here with cartooning specifically in mind.
Conan O’Brien (pictured?) is doing his show in NY this week, so I’m heading out to try to score a seat to tonight’s taping at the Beacon Theater, which is about 100 yards from my apartment. Fun fact: When Conan did “Late Night,” he lived just down the block from me, at 72nd and Central Park West (in a slightly larger apartment, probably). Edit: Aww, didn’t get in. On the plus side, random Tuesday off!
Many animators use thumbnails as the starting point to their animation; here’s Glen Keane’s take on it if you’re interested. These are akin to gesture drawing; you’re trying to accurately describe the basic lines of force and action, without worrying about detailed features. Here I actually looped a five second scene from “The Public Enemy,” in which James Cagney introduces Mae Clarke to some citrus, and jotted down what I thought were some of the key poses and actions.
Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead. Another day, another underwhelming animation of waterfowl with an inexplicably expanding cranium. (Animation is HARD!) But it was my first attempt at producing something in Toon Boom Animate. I pulled the trigger on buying it after watching an extensive tutorial online that pretty much demystified the whole program for me. I had tried the Personal Learning Edition, a free version that doesn’t allow you to export your work, but I wasn’t sold on it until yesterday.
I knew I wouldn’t make my usual deadline for posting tonight, so here’s a pic of me enjoying the heck out of the the animation software that I bought today.