Saturday, May 06, 2006
Media: Preston Blair's Animation 1st Edition Part Two
This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great art instruction posts.
An Online Drawing Lesson From Preston Blair and John Kricfalusi! Click for details...
Here are a couple of comments these postings have received...
"I began making animated films while I was a student at Santa Barbara Junior High School many, many years ago. The only text book I had was Preston Blair's animation book. Honestly, it was all I needed to get started. I can't remember how many copies of this book I've purchased over the years to give to young kids with an interest in animation. The book is pure gold." --Floyd Norman
"A lot of young artists look at the Preston Blair book as some sort of archaic and old-fashioned irrelevant text. Almost as though learning these lessons will ruin their "style". This of course is the folly of youth. The ability to draw like Preston Blair, using all the tips in the book gives you the strength to do ANYTHING." --Nick Cross
"Many thanks on your posting of the original version of the Preston Blair animation book. If that's not worth a contribution to your cause, nothing is. Keep up the good work." --Paul Dini
Archive Project cannot continue.
For more on Preston Blair's "Animation", see... Part One
SPECIAL TREATS
Marc Deckter of Duck Walk has posted some great side-by-side comparisons of the first and revised editions of the Preston Blair book. Take a look at them at...
Preston Blair Book: Variations On A Theme Pt. 2
Clarke Snyder of Inspiration Grab-Bag has posted frame grabs from a few of the films that some of the examples in these pages were sourced from. Check it out at...
Preston Blair (Animation & Books)
Thanks to Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew for allowing us to digitize this invaluable reference.
If you don't have Preston Blair's book yet, Get It Now!
No cartoonist, aspiring or professional should be without it. If this book was good enough for Dave Tendlar, it's good enough for you.Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
Stumble It!
posted by Stephen Worth @ 10:44 PM
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21 Comments:
Wow, thank you. :D
Wow. This is amazing.
Years ago, I bought the green book with the elephant because it had the clearest information of all the books in the store, but I never liked the drawings in it. They're either overly genial or obnoxious.
But the drawings here are SWEET!! They're old-fashioned yet really fresh. This is the real Preston Blair.
Thanks a million and looking forward to the next post.
let me tell you guys that you are making history over the net with these great posts. I hope you'll post all the old book 'couse it's the greatest thing ever!
thanks again.
Julian from Argentina
Thanks for sharing this goldmine with us. I had a flick through the book with the elephant on it but I also thought the drawings were very bland. But this has changed my mind about Preston.
Fantastic!
Oh my word, this is just staggering!! The fact that Preston had to redraw his orginal book unfortunately shows in the revised art, but this has the all the spontaneity, appeal and honesty that was missing, and then some!!!
Just beautiful drawings and a complete inspiration. The currently published version had sullied my opinion of Preston Blair's work, but this just pushed my appreciation through the roof.
Thanks so much Steve and Jerry!!
I like how the first words out of everyone's mouth is indeed "WOW"!!!
Let me concur: WOW!
This is seriously a GREAT resource and such a beautifully rendered book. Thanks for taking the time to scan and post them.
Thank you SO much. It's great to see this in it's orignal form. Keep up the good work!
I owe my career to Preston Blair in some ways. Sure I went to art school and learned animation there, but the teacher wasn't always around yet this book was when I had a question about a pose or how to time something. The drawings, construction detail and especially the walk cycle section were as invaluable then as they are today. To see it with characters like Jerry Mouse puts a new face on an old freind which makes it all the more awesome! Thanks Stephen and Jerry for this great trip down memory lane!
Thank you soo much for these! I'm going to put these together into a pdf to give to the guys at work. Half the crew coming in to do flash work have never heard of preston blair.
these drawings are actually better than the redo's. i compared the squirrel page and the originals are much more lively, tho i like the running kid redone better.
awesome, thanks again!!
I've wanted to see this book my whole life. Thaks so much.
I had this book as a kid, too. I've often thought over the years that it would have been interesting to keep a record of all the books, logos, school mascots, etc that I've seen that ripped off drawings from this book without ever acknowledging it.
I freakin love you man! Now THIS is what animation should be like! Not like all that mucha lucha or independant flash cartoons with circles and lines for "character design"...
WOW!
Freelance animator Mike Kazaleh said this original version (with the commercial characters from MGM and stuff) existed but I couldn't find it. Thanks for posting it.
Wow. I HAVE those books, given to me as a child (some three decades ago nearly) by a friend of the family. I always loved Preston Blair's works in Fantasia, Bambi, and Tom + Jerry, but ...didn't ever fully appreciate what a treasure I had. But they did inspire me to doodle and sketch my way through grade school. Thanks for making them available for people to see...they truly are great tools and treasures!
sooooo cool thanks a lot!
Wow...thank you thank you thank you! I saw this original version when I first started in animation; it was owned by a fine animator at the Philadelphia studio where I started in the business. I myself had learned from the revised version, and I've been looking for the original for years and years. Now I can stop. When I started animating for Jack Zander in NYC, Preston Blair was doing animation for him. He was a wonderful, friendly guy, and signed my versions of his books (with a drawing of Mickey in one!), and I bought an animation desk from him, at which I still work every day. So glad to have this original version now. All hail, Preston!
Another interesting twist is the rare 1946 book The Know-How of Cartooning by Ken Hultgren, put out by Research Publishing Company.
While not as strong as Preston's book, Preston pretty obviously was using it for reference, because there are a couple of poses in this book that are fairly clearly borrowed from Hultgren's, most notably the back view of the cow looking at us over her shoulder and the billy goat.
Ironic, considering Animation has been copied by more artists in the cartooning field than probably any other book.
For the one that read this check Andrew Loomis - Fun with a pencil
There you will see something different.
Both books complement the other.
So if you wanna be a real animator the you must search both books.
Trust me.
Amazing.simply amazing.
I hope you keep doing thse,they're helping me a lot in my proyects.
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