This is an excerise I do where I'll watch a classic cartoon, pause it, and copy the poses. But instead of just copying the character, I'll use my own character and try to match the pose. Does this excersize actually do anything for your drawing abilities...? I dunno, I just like doing it.
It's from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, "Cat Fishing" the best Tom and Jerry I've ever seen, the only good Tom and Jerry I've ever seen. I hate tom and jerry's, they're super boring. But I saw this one and loved it, and then I found out one of the lead animators was Michael Lah, Tex Avery's right hand man, and my favorite animator of all times. He animated the bests scenes too.
So, not too many posts ago I proclaimed Tex Avery's MGM cartoons are the greatest cartoons ever made. Well I was wrong again, kind of. I recently saw a few cartoons Avery did for Walter Lantz, after leaving MGM. One of them in specific, a chilly willy cartoon entitled "The Legend of Rockabye point", is one of the single funniest cartoons I've ever seen.
The budget for the cartoon was lower than those he produced at MGM, and is evident with 1. More recycled BG's than usual (for a Tex cartoon) and 2. More holds than usual (for a Tex cartoon). But that's not a bad thing, in fact, this is how limited animation should look.
This is a little piece I did, I thought it was a funny idea. I did it all in flash, and actually put it together pretty quickly. I call it "The Creation of Bloo". I think it's pretty obvious what work of art this is based off of, and if you don't know, well then you're probably blind. Which is weird because I don't know how you'd be reading this post?
Finally, after posts of speculation, the truth is revealed... Here's a little logo I threw together. I did it fast just because I wanted something to put on our storyboard templates, you know, to make it look more "official", and the logo just kinda stuck. I'm sure we'll tweak it later, but, just thought I'd put it up.
Also, this character above has nothing to do with Big Foot and Gnome, just an old character I'd thought I'd post. I like it.
So I'm obsessed with Tex Avery cartoons. Not his WB ones, but his MGM cartoons. A buddy of mine gave me a copy of the Avery Collection (which was originally on laser disc I think), and has every cartoon he did at MGM.
Prior to seeing the Avery Collection, I had been fixated on WB cartoons (I tend to go through phases), and was convinced that they were the greatest cartoons ever made specifically the Road Runner/Coyote series... I was wrong. I can't believe how incredible Tex's MGM cartoons are. I have been watching them non-stop for about 2 months now, and they have yet to get old. They are the most entertaining and captivating pieces of cinema I have ever seen. After watching only the 1st disc of a five disc set, Tex Avery had completely changed my perception of what animation should be.
I think today his genius may be somewhat overlooked. A lot of the gags you see in his cartoons were so radical and groundbreaking at the time. I'm sure when people first saw his cartoons they thought "what the hell is he on?". However, over the years, people have repeatedly stolen Avery gags and executed them with less than perfect timing, poor staging, and unappealing drawings. It's gotten to a point where Avery gags are standard in most cartoons, the completely original and innovative jokes he created have broken into a realm of normalcy, I think maybe even subconsiously (spelling?) . We now KNOW for a fact that when a male character sees a sexy character his eyes pop out of his head. I mean, Avery came up with at over 60 years ago, and since then, no one has come up with a new "take". Why not!? The only shows I actually see trying are Spongebob and Chowder (Which is absolutly brilliant). Chowder is pushing the envelope on gags more than any show since Spongebob. Chowder also has what appears to be a specific vision which creator Carl Grenblatt (also a Spongebob board artist (and an emmy winning board artist to some)) executes without flaw. I feel like there are probably a lot of people saying "what the hell is he on?" right now, however when 5 or 6 shows come out copying the style and sense of humor of Chowder it will become a standard. On a side note, (not that this post hasn't already taken one... or two), What kind of logic do we use today where whenever someone comes up with something original and creative we say "what the hell is he/she on?". Why is the only way someone can be creative through the use of halucinagens? Anyways, in closing, Tex Avery is single greatest animation director of all time, "Hick Chick" by Avery is the best animated short of all time, "The Three Little Pups" by Avery is the best looking animated short of all time, and you should watch Chowder on Cartoon Network.
If you read that whole thing... cool, and thanks. Oh yeah, here are some Avery model sheets I copied.
These are some concept sketches of the other main character... you don't win anything for guessing what he is. He didn't change too much through out the whole development process, which could be a bad thing, but the final version is pretty hillarious.
Potential Squirells. Now I'm not saying there are squirells in the project, but if there are, these are them... potentially. Some additional Big Foot concepts and shapes. I forgot how many of these I did, there are about 4 more pages as well. I like the one that looks like a cactus.
This is some development work I've been doing for a super top-secret project I'm working on with a friend of mine, Joey G. We're both really excited about the project, and hopefully I'll have quite a bit of artwork to continually post as we press onward.
I tried to start pretty much with just shapes, exploring all kinds of possibilities (Very much inspired by the work of Shane Prigmore and Shannon Tindle.) These are concept designs for one of the main characters, can anybody guess what he is? (The final design is not included on either page).
These are some rough sketches I did of my puppy Dodger, aka Dodgeball, aka Beaster. He's an akita, and big and pretty old, so he lies around a lot which makes it easy to do gesture drawings.
Prophet Buddy is an online animated series by a buddy of mine Eric Pringle. He is one of the best flash animators around, and Prophet Buddy is some of the best flash animation on the web. I highly recomend giving it a watch.
If you like it, there are super cool Prohpet Buddy shirts available for purchase, I bet they make great christmas presents, but what do I know, I'm a jew. Anyways, check out Prophet Buddy.
This is another piece inspired by the artwork of Shane Prigmore. I'm trying to get a lot more comfortable with photoshop. I'm going to need it a lot when I start working on the Deese Nuts shorts.
I was just messing around in photoshop, did this little piece. It was inspired by the artwork of Shane Prigmore. He's a super talented character designer.
These are some character designs I did for a project being pitched to adult swim, The Legend of Deese Nuts. I got to work with some really cool guys, they gave me a lot of creative freedom and I'm super happy with the outcome (Especially beacuse I don't draw human characters?).
The website is up, Deesenuts.com but it's still in the priliminary stages. There is a whole merchanidsing line (including nut sacks), and a lot more to come in the future as we plan to integrate the new designs in.
We're going to make some flash shorts in the near future. Hopefully the project will take off, its pretty hillarious, and I enjoyed working with these guys so much.
The characters are still subject to change, these are very concept, so I'd love any feedback you can offer? (I won't be mad if you hate them.)
When I was interning on Foster's they gave me a character test as an excersize. I didn't like any of the stuff I came up with on my first pass, so I tried again.This is what I came up with.
Craig McCracken has had such a huge influence on my style, especially my work post-internship. I find myself doing a lot of; eyes lying flat on the head, and not overlapping. As opposed to say, Spongebob-esque opticals, which, about 4 months ago, I would draw for every character. Below; Eye's flat on head/body. No overlap.
These are stills from a new short I'm working on. I'm really happy with how these scenes came out. The whole short was inspired by Eric Pringle and his new "Strips" Prophet Buddy (Here's the blog; http://prophetbuddy.blogspot.com/.
I got a chance to meet Eric during my internship on Foster's Home. He's the animation supervisor for the show and one of the sickest flash guys around (and he uses a mouse! (like me)), not to mention, a really cool guy too . His new "Strips" are really funny, and the animation is fun-credible. So with those as inspiration, I set out to make a quick, simple short (Not that Eric's are simple). However, as usual with my projects, I get carried away and they take on a life of their own, and I end up planning an epic of... epic porportions. So it looks like its gonna take a while, but i'm really excited about it, so hopefully I'll be able to keep the motivation up.
This is a storyboard test I did for Fosters. Not for a job really, but for my portfolio, a lot of the artists recomended doing it, to show 1. Your sense of boarding and 2. how you handle other people's characters. I showed them Craig McCracken, he thought they were pretty good.
Ben Balistreri gave me some good advice on it, so I changed a few things, and would probably change some more. Below is a picture that Ben drew for me, It's awesome. He's one of the best artists i've ever seen. I learned a lot from him this summer.
These are 2 characters I've drawn over the summer. Just messing around with designs, shapes, and a bunch of other junk I've learned from guys like; Craig McCracken, Ben Balistreri, and Alex Kirwan.
I'm interning on Foster's Home right now. It's awesome. Here are some drawings I've been working on, some for a character test, and others just doodles or Foster's inspired work.
The character above, his name is Commander Babble. Comments?
A few Wilt's I've done. I've had a crazy week, and another ahead, so not too much time to draw. I'm moving out to Burbank on thursday. I've got an internship this summer out there.
I'm also doing some freelance work for an independant animated feature, so it's gonna be a lot of work, but this is what I want to do the rest of my life and I can't wait to get started.
Wilt was pretty fun to draw, a little tricky at first, but once you get the porportions down, he's pretty simple. It's crazy how small his body is compared to head, I never really noticed until I drew him.
Some Coco's I did. I wasn't really having fun drawing her so i stopped. She was pretty easy to draw actually, easier than I thought she would have been, except for the hair/tree-top, a bit tricky.
During class I did some Foster's doodles. I didn't have any references, so I was pretty happy with how they came out, seems like i'm retaining the characters pretty well.
My name is Josh, I'm 24, some people call me Hat.
I dropped out of school and moved to California to pursue my dreams of writing and boarding for animation. I interned at Cartoon Network on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and then at Dreamwork's on 'How to Train Your Dragon'. I recently completed a pilot for Cartoon Network called "The Awesome Chronicles of Manny and Khan" with my good friend Joey Giardina. I also got an opportunity to work on Cartoon Network's Flapjack doing storyboard revisions and clean-up. Now I'm back at Dreamworks doin storyboards for an upcoming animated feature. Animation is my life, it's all I've ever wanted to do... it's all I've ever actually done. I love animation history; Max Fleischer, Frank Tashlin, Michael Lah. I could watch Tex Avery shorts all day.
My heroes are;
Jason Mraz
Tex Avery
Craig McCracken
Stephen Hillenburg
and Ben Franklin
