Education: John K and Preston Blair's Drawing Course

From Tim Rudder's Blog
Just a reminder that folks are still studying John Kricfalusi's notes on Preston Blair's Animation. If you want to sharpen your chops and you're looking for a project to keep you busy this Summer, check it out...

Animation Drawing Course based on the rare first edition of Preston Blair's book Animation

John Kricfalusi's Blog, John K Stuff
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Quote of the Day

WHY MAN LEARNS FROM THE PAST
Now and then, someone will write in the comments that young artists don't need tools. They just need their own God-given creativity and their beautiful natural-born styles. They needn't hamper themselves with knowledge and techniques that were learned through trial and error by experts over decades. The young genius artist wants to start from scratch and make all the same mistakes that thousands of more talented artists had long ago learned from.

Every artist of course has the right to do whatever he wants. Every builder does too. You could poopoo hammers as cramping your creativity and try to punch nails into wood as you attempt to build a house in a completely new way without even a plan. It's not against the law or anything. - But good luck in ever finishing it or having it stand up by itself.

But it eludes my reasoning why anyone would want to choose to have absolutely no control over their finished products. Skills, practice, knowledge and tools put you way ahead of your competitors.

You have a much wider freedom of creative choices if you understand the basic tools of your trade.

-John Kricfalusi, Staging 3: Making Your Poses Read
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Annies: 2007 Winsor McCay Award Winners

Congratulations to this year's honorees of the prestigious Winsor McCay career achievement Annie Award. Here are the bios and clip reels for the three Winsor McCay winners at the 35th annual Annie Awards, which were held recently at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus...


John Canemaker, John Kricfalusi,
Frank Gladstone (presenter), Glen Keane
JOHN CANEMAKER

John Canemaker is an animation historian, educator, lecturer, Academy award winning animator and the author of numerous books on animation. He is also a regular contributor of articles and essays on animation for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

His books are some of the most important and thoroughly researched in the field. They include The Animated Raggedy Ann & Andy (1977), Walt Disney's Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation (2001) and Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (1987) detailing one of the pioneers of animation in whose honor John is receiving this award.


John has taught at several colleges and universities, but is most closely associated with New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he is a full, tenured professor who became the program's executive director in 1988. John has been a featured commentator on many classic animation DVD releases, and has lectured at New York's Museum of Modern Art and many film and animation festivals around the world.


He commissioned work for television and feature film includes commercials, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee Wee's Playhouse, and The World According to Garp.

In 2006 John received the Academy Award for his autobiographical short film, The Moon And The Son: An Imagined Conversation.

GLEN KEANE

At a very young age Glen Keane's interest in art was no mystery. Growing up with a cartoonist father, Bill Keane, the creator of Family Circus, Glen thought that every kid's father was a cartoonist.


Although Glen could have gone to Arizona State for football, he ended up being accepted into the California Institute for the Arts, where he was introduced to animation and the goal of becoming a Disney animator. After graduation, Glen studied at Disney under Ollie Johnston, one of the "Nine Old Men", with Ron Clements, Brad Bird, John Lasseter, Don Bluth and others.


After becoming an animator on The Rescuers, Pete's Dragon, The Fox and the Hound and The Great Mouse Detective. He took a break from Disney to work on The Chipmunk Adventure, and returned as a supervising animator for Sykes in Oliver & Company, Marahute in Rescuers Down Under, Beast in Beauty and the Beast, John Silver in Treasure Planet and the title characters of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas and Tarzan.

Glen's influence on Disney animation has been such that he has been referred to as one of the "Nine New Men". He is currently directing Disney's Rapuunzel, due for release in 2009.

JOHN KRICFALUSI:
An Appreciation By Eddie Fitzgerald

I'm merely stating the obvious when I say that John Kricfalusi's contribution to animation has been immense. He and Ralph Bakshi re-invigorated a dying TV animation industry with Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which, together with Disney's Roger Rabbit, ushered in the 90's animation boom. The Ren & Stimpy Show was groundbreaking in every way, and is still massively influential. Flash animation was little more than a way to do banner ads before John got hold of it, and his blog, all kinds of stuff is a stunning teaching tool and oasis of thoughtful cartoon analysis. If I were to write about his drawing innovations, this essay would require a couple of hours to read. The man's amazing, what can I say?

Of course, John is best known as the creator of Ren & Stimpy, two of the most recognizable characters in all of modern animation. Fans talk about Ren & Stimpy being cute AND demented, and they are, but it took dozens of behind-the-scenes innovations to bring out those qualities. At the outset of that show, John upturned a cornucopia of new techniques onto the table. Layered on top of terrific voice work by John and Billy West were new ways of handling story, dialogue, character design, character animation, layouts, music, sound effects and color– even a new way of doing in-betweens. All this came out of John's belief that every stage in animation should be creative. I think if there had been a way to make emptying the trash creative, he would have found it.


It's funny to think that one of the industry's best artists is also one of its best writers. John's knack for dialogue is near legendary. At an autograph party on Melrose, fans wrapped around the block chanting Ren & Stimpy lines like, "You bloated sack of protoplasm!" and "I've had thees ice cream bar seence I was a child!" The man has a way with words. Maybe it's his affinity for exotic words like "interloper", "rapscallion", and "poltroon". Maybe it's the Baroque syntax in constructions like, "It is not I who am angry! It is I who am MAD!" It's cutting-edge, modern entertainment, yet it sounds like it was written by someone wearing pantaloons and a codpiece!

Just as impressive are John's hilarious, artist-friendly stories. How about this one from Naked Beach Frenzy:

An over-zealous, hairy David Hasselhoff-type lifeguard tries to save the beautiful babes on the beach from Ren, who he thinks is a sand crab. Between the lifeguard sequences, Ren & Stimpy serve as attendants in the ladies' shower, with Stimpy doubling as "SHAMPOO MASTER!"

That's it! That's the whole story! No politically-correct gang of skateboarding teens, no contest with the mayor handing out a trophy, no secondary character arcs with little Timmy learning about prejudice... Just funny gag situations, and plenty of 'em. If you've seen the film, then you know that gags, when they're done as well as John does them, can provide all the story momentum you need. Not only that, but they lend themselves to funny posing and funny acting.


And cartoon acting? The man is obsessed with cartoon acting! Maybe it's all those Warner Bros. cartoons and Honeymooners episodes he watches incessantly. John loves to set up a scene so that the performance carries it. Cartoonists who work for him quickly learn that the standard five expressions aren't enough. He expects unique, one-of-a-kind poses and expressions that are tailor-made to fit the dialogue. And did I mention that it has to be funny?

I'll close with a summary of what I think John is all about. It won't take long to write because it's fairly simple, viz., funny stories, drawn and acted in a funny way, and executed with skill and imagination. This simple formula changed the whole business and made a hatload of profit for the studios. I think John imagines his studio as a sort of haven for really talented class clowns. That, I am delighted to say, it has always been.

ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards
2007 Winsor McCay Award Winners
(Quicktime 7 / 21.25 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

For more info on the Annie Awards, see www.annieawards.org

I would like to post more of the ceremonies, but the material is in the Betacam format. If anyone has facilities to transfer from Betacam to DV Quicktime, please let me know.

Thanks!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Links: All Kinds of Stuff is Two

John K's All Kinds of Stuff is celebrating its second anniversary, and John has marked the occasion by nailing a manifesto to the front door of his blog stating why he thinks animation is so important.

To me (and others) the heights of cartoon art are more like music than they are like literal stories. Music has its own special language to describe its structure and melodies and we need a language like that. Otherwise, we are stuck trying to describe cartoons in terms of other media like live-action film, or novels. While there is some overlap between what cartoons do and what other artictic media does, there are also blatant difference. Those differences are what define us, what set us apart from other forms of entertainment.

Read more at All Kinds of Stuff: 2nd Anniversary
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2007 Review: 7 Modern Animation

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the links to read more on this topic.


From Early 50s Disney Christmas Cards February 10th, 2007
NUMBER 7: MODERN ANIMATION

Amid Amidi's great book, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation stirred up a recent revival of interest in 1950s stylized animation. Just about every animation related blog had posts dealing with the subject. Back in May, a firestorm of controversy erupted around a fascinating series of articles on John Kricfalusi's blog, All Kinds of Stuff.


More than any other animator, John K is responsible for bringing stylized animation back to television. The Log commercials on The Ren & Stimpy Show and John's more recent commercials for Old Navy (pictured above) were masterful homages to what Amid terms "Cartoon Modern". But John's interest in the style isn't without criticism. His comments about the dominance of design over entertainment value in the theatrical cartoons of UPA resulted in one of the most stimulating and provocative discussions of animation theory in some time. The informed and impassioned arguments on both sides of the issue spilled over into Michael Sporn's Splog and Amid's Cartoon Brew.


My own volley in the battle over UPA was titled...
Design: UPA Done Right May 24th, 2007

Criticism of modern animation isn't without precident... Mark Mayerson posted a blistering analysis by one of the founders of the UPA style, Chuck Jones...


Chuck Jones On Modern Animation March 11th, 2007

Other posts this year that featured the modern style were...

• Story: Alvin Show Pilot Board September 21st, 2007


• Herb Klynn's The Shrimp February 25th, 2007

I'm sure there will be many more discussion of this interesting topic in the coming year.

Go To Number 6 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Opinion: Bakshi on 2D vs. 3D

ASIFA-Hollywood is honored to post this article by the legendary animation director Ralph Bakshi. Ralph has retired to New Mexico to paint, but he is still very much in touch with the animation scene today. In this article, Ralph addresses animators in both the 2D and 3D fields, and points the direction that he thinks animation should take in the future. -Stephen Worth


The paintings on this page are by Ralph Bakshi. (© Bakshi) To see more of Ralph's work, visit RalphBakshi.com

BAKSHI ON 2D vs 3D

First of all, when it comes to controversy over 2D vs. 3D, I'm in no particular camp. I think computer animation is amazing. Some of the Japanese hand drawn animation I've seen is great too. John K. was a breath of fresh air for animation. But the discussion always comes down to the same one I always have with the young kids in the industry- the starving ones with mortgages to pay. When I see the end credits on big studio animated films, I'm floored by the amount of people it takes to finish a film. The cost to make the first 20 minutes of your modern animated feature would comprise the entire budgets of all of my first six films put together. Hard to believe but true!


It's probably inconceivable to you guys, but I made my feature films with no pencil tests, no storyboards, no retakes, no color keys, no character designers, no special effects department, nothing, zip, nada- because we had to. (How I did that is another discussion altogether.) I was my own animation director- everything came to me. I flipped the drawings and gave the OK. God bless the professionalism of Irv Spence, John Sparey, Ambi Paliwoda, Virgil Ross, Manny Perez... all those guys who animated for me, because they're the ones that made it all come alive.


I'll tell you a secret... Not having pencil tests was liberating for the animators who worked for me. They knew I was expecting creativity, not perfection. I wasn't gonna be standing over the moviola looking at their tests saying, "raise that pinkie finger a little higher" or "fix that lip flap". There was no room for retakes. Knowing that made them unafraid. No one was going to look over their shoulder and second guess them. They puzzled out the scene, expressed themselves through the character, and moved on to the next scene. You better believe- they loved it!

When I was young, I had a dream- and a rage over Disney's insistence that nothing worked on the big screen unless it was perfect- redone and reworked until it was flawless. I always thought the difference between my films and the Disney ones was the difference between rock n' roll and a symphony. I love them both if the music is right. But a lot of spoiled animators claimed that I was ruining every young kid's life with my rough animation- and that Terry-Toons and I were nothing. I didn't listen to them, because I always felt that honesty, leaving the pack, telling stories that were part of the director's personal life and not some merchandiser's idea- all those things were more important than Disney's insistence on perfect animation.

OK. Let's talk animation. First of all, I want to talk to you drawing type animators...

When I hear 2D animators today talking about acting in hand-drawn cartoons, I ask, what kind of acting? Are you talking about the old fashioned acting that animators have always done? You know... the hand on the hip, finger-pointing, broad action, lots of overlapping action, screeching to a halt- all that turn-of-the-century old fashioned mime stuff. Is that what you're talking about? Well, forget about it. If you're gonna compete with computer animation, you better go all out and do something that's totally different. Call it "new acting". Blow the computer out of the water. Sure, Milt Kahl, Irv Spence, Bill Tytla and all those guys were great. Leave them alone. They've done their job. It would just seem old to do the exact same thing today. Find something new to call your own- something exciting as hell.


To you computer guys...

I'm supposed to scold you computer animators and tell you to think more like the hand drawn guys. Well, there's no question hand drawn animation is different than CGI, motion capture or rotoscope, or even limited animation. Yes, computer animators CAN learn a lot from hand drawn if they know where to look. Maybe... maybe... maybe...

Some history- Early on, hand drawn was great- Fleischer's Popeye, Jim Tyer, Freddie Moore, Rod Scribner, Bill Tytla, Johnny Gent... the direct, fresh stuff. But then suddenly, along came "real good animation" with all its complication, and the long painful looks, big shrugs and sighs, batting eyelashes, cutesy pie phony crap until you want to vomit... Overnight, all the old greats were forced to either kill themselves, stay drunk all the time, or quickly fade away. Animation got saddled with a bunch of boring, repetitive, old fashioned, dumb cliches. I am NOT going to tell computer animation to follow that road. Sure, computer animators should look at hand drawn animation to learn. But don't get down on your knees. Don't make the same mistakes hand drawn animation made at the end. Study the right stuff. There's a hell of a lot more to learn from a Fleischer Popeye than there is from some "epic fantasy" like Prince of Egypt.


So I'm sitting in the theater watching a rat trying to cook some food. Now he's trying to get out the window... I blink with amazement at the brilliance of your computer, but wait a minute... This is nothing more than a Disney film made with a computer! Your bosses must have MADE you do this. Where do you guys think you're headed? Do you really think copying Disney films over and over isn't going to get just as boring as the boring Disney films you're copying? You've got all these great computers... show me something I haven't seen a million times already. I have things in my head that the computer could do that would stun you. (But don't worry. I got turned down by every studio in town.)


Listen. I'm talking to that bunch of you computer guys out there who want to crawl into a basement with a big stack of machines and kick ass- the guys who want to do something NEW and DIFFERENT. Don't worry about the money. You're not getting paid that much anyway. If your characters shake and spit the colors off in some scenes- great. It doesn't matter. And if some of the textures jiggle a little, who cares? Back in the day, I heard animators critique the animation in my films as being "too ruff". Well, we didn't like it all either- but we LOVED what we were making- Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, Hey Good Lookin', Wizards- thirty years later and they're still playing worldwide, because they were honest and rugged. The animation didn't take away from the movie like the slick stuff I see in hand drawn animation at the end. Something REAL is always better than something realistic.


OK. Now I'm talking to ALL animators- with a computer or with a pencil...

Here's a guy you could all learn a trick or two from... John Kricfalusi. Why is John Kricfalusi so great? Why do people copy John's stuff but never seem to really get it? Great draftsmen have tried and failed to imitate him. How the hell does he do it?

Well, when I first let John direct, it was an amazing thing to watch. It wasn't the way he combed his hair and it wasn't the way he tried to hustle me. John was a one-of-a-kind. When one of John's characters pointed a finger, it REALLY pointed. It pointed like no other finger in no other cartoon ever pointed before. When John drew the curve of an ankle on a girl character, it was like no ankle curve I ever saw before. Everybody thinks John's style is what sets him apart. It isn't about his style... it's not about the color... it's not about the jokes... it's not about the expressions... it's not the voices... Don't imitate that stuff. If I hear another fake John K cartoon voice I think I'm gonna scream!


The thing that put John so far ahead of the pack was his originality. His poses were fresh and they jumped off the sheet at you. They lived and breathed and acted in a way that wasn't like anything that came before. Every drawing was brand new for him. He thought things out for himself, expressed his own ideas, and didn't keep rehashing someone else's tired old cheats. John's brilliant posing took animation to another level, and animators would be smart if they followed his lead. BUT HEAR THIS... Don't imitate his creations. Imitate his creativity.

There are no sides here, only techniques. The important thing is to do something more than just sell dolls and hamburgers, or get the best table at some bullshit restaurant. Stop crying. Go out and do something. Starve to death if you have to. It's honorable.

Go buy my book. Read more. Learn more. Get mad at me again.
Old Man Ralph

© Bakshi Productions


Click for more Bakshi Phone Doodles
This article has been translated into Persian.

If you found this article interesting, see... Imitation vs. Inspiration: Chaplin's Shadow / The Application Of Inspiration / How To Properly Use Reference / Incorporating Natural Forms / (Visual) Literacy / Why Do We Need An Animation Archive? / Parody: Whack! Comics

UNFILTERED: The Complete Ralph Bakshi isn't one of those "art books" with postage stamp sized pictures floating in oceans of tasteful white space and huge text blocks of scholarly blather that crowds out the images. It's just pictures, pictures and more pictures... along with just enough text to put them in context. The book is organized to show Ralph's career from his earliest days at Terry-Toons, to his groundbreaking features, to his revolutionary TV work, to his most recent fine art paintings. Even if you think you know all there is to know about Bakshi, this book will grab you by the lapels and shake you and show you things you've never seen the likes of before. Click through the link to pick up the Bakshi book at Amazon.
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Design: John K On Character Design

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.


Click for more great designs by John K.
Today, John Kricfalusi has posted another great article on his blog, All Kinds of Stuff. You owe it to yourself to check it out. If you're a student, you'd be smart to print articles like this out and organize them in a binder for easy reference.

ALL KINDS OF STUFF: CHARACTER DESIGN PRIMER

Another example of how blogging is changing the face of animation.

Thanks, John!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Drawing: John K Advice Letter and Eddie's Boney Finger

Good drawing is more important than anything else in animation. More than ideas, style, stories. Everything starts with good drawing. -- John K

I remember when we were hot in production on the George Liquor web cartoons at Spumco in 1998, a package came in the mail from a kid who was a fan of the Spumco website. He sent some of his own comics and funny drawings, so I took them to John K to look over. John took time out to sit down and carefully compose a letter back to the kid, giving him many of the same tips he shares with you in the $100K Animation Drawing Course here at the Archive.

Almost a decade has passed and that kid has grown up and is attending Sheridan College studying to be an animator. His name is Amir Avni. Amir posted the letter that John sent him in the hopes that it can help others like it helped him.

Toonamir: Time to give a lil' sumpin' back

It's a good week for advice for animation students, cartoonist Eddie Fitzgerald throws his hat in the ring in his inimitable style...


Uncle Eddie: THE DIRTY OLD BONEY FINGER

Read the comments on Eddie's post too.

See also... The $100K Animation Drawing Course and Will Finn's Letter From Ward Kimball.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Design: UPA Done Right

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.


John Kricfalusi's blog, "All Kinds Of Stuff" continues to be the most information packed and eye opening animation resource on the internet. If you haven't visited it lately, you'll want to check out the series of posts John has been writing on the impact of UPA on animation. I guarantee that you've never heard these sorts of opinions anywhere else, and once you digest the concepts, you'll never look at a UPA cartoon the same again.

Wally Walrus vs. UPA Part One
Wally vs. UPA 2: Stylized Cartoonists Take Their Skills For Granted
Wally vs. UPA 3: Walt Craves Respect
Wally vs. UPA Sidebar: Flat Stylized Cartoons I Like
Wally vs. UPA 4: When Milquetoasts Rebel
Wally vs. UPA 5: UPA Bred Worse Imitations
Sidebar: Spumco Stylized Cartoons: 1990


Here is just a sample of what John has to say...

If you don't know cartoon history and you just grew up watching Cartoon Network, you might think that this flat stuff is something new and "hip". It's not. It's much older than UPA, and the more graphic styles in cartoons before UPA didn't come with the wimpy trappings. Because of our association with UPA's beginnings, we assume that when we do something in a graphic style, we have to also carry over all the other attributes that came with UPA's particular cartoon vision- the blandness, the wimpy world view, the snootiness.

People usually don't analyze or break apart the elements that make up something they like. If we like it we assume that every ingredient in it is equally good. Then when we develop our own styles, we copy the bad with the good. That's what we need ANALYSIS for!

Like many artists, I have tons of influences. There are lots of things that inspire me. I try to figure out why they do and I break them down into their separate ingredients. I then decide which ingredients are the ones that are useful and discard the others that might have just come along with it, but don't actually add anything. There are good things about UPA and Disney- Tex Avery combined them and added his own world view to them and made cartoons more entertaining than either style.

John's comments cut like a sword through the "design for design's sake" school of animation. He cites Tex Avery as the one cartoon director who was able to incorporate modern design sensibilities, while still maintaining the entertainment value and humor of classic cartoons. He's dead right. This post reminded me of my favorite series of commercials... which were directed by Avery at Cascade studios and animated by Rod Scribner.


Not only is the character design modern in the "UPA style" but the movement has been stylized in a complementary manner. Why don't the current "Flat" cartoons move like this?!



KoolAid Spots (Cascade/ca.1960)
(Quicktime 7 / 6.8 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

UPDATE: I was browsing through Cartoon Modern today, and I found a post that Amid did last Summer that perfectly encapsulates my thoughts about the importance of animation even in stylized cartoons...

The Importance of "Animation" in Animaton Design

One of the hardest things to get across when discussing animation design is that it's not just about character designers, layout artists and background painters. The animator is a critical member of the design team....

The primary reason, in my opinion, that so much of today's stylized animation rings hollow is because nobody ever follows through on the animation. Regardless of whether a show is animated traditionally overseas or if it's done in Flash, most contemporary TV series creators think their job is done once they've created a pretty model sheet and slapped on a bit of color styling. These few stills illustrate however that model sheets are often the least important aspect of stylized animation-- what the animator does with those designs is what truly counts.

Exactly! Great animators like Bill Littlejohn, Rod Scribner and Grim Natwick moved these kinds of designs in unique and stylized ways.

This post is causing quite a ruckus over at Michael Sporn's blog. Check out Michael's post titled Aaargh. In particular, read the comments. Here's a real doozy...

Not everything has to look or move gorgeously to be good or artful. That's one of the dumbest, scariest suggestions I've heard anyone make in animation circles.

Yow! Do people really think lousy animation is artistic?!

Cartoon Brew has jumped into... The Great UPA Debate. Will Finn (check out his great new blog, small room) writes...

I see Steve Worth's point about Kool-Aid ads and such, where perfectly admirable work is overlooked because it wasn't in the service of "Art witha a capital A". Animators who want to evaluate work on a technique level should be able to appreciate that wherever they find it and not just where the intelligentsia have enshrined it with a golden frame.

If you found this article to be interesting, see also... Early 50s UPA Model Sheets, Herb Klynn The Shrimp, Grim Natwick's Post UPA Commercials, Alvin Show: The Whistler Storyboard and Jules Engel's Color Keys.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

4.2.09
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Link: John K's Guide To Surviving The End of Television

Cold Hard Flash: Surviving the End of Television

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School: A Comment

I occasionally search blogs for new students starting the $100,000 Cartoon Drawing Course and to check out the progress students are making. Today, I ran across this post...

John K is a great teacher with charisma dripping from every word in his blog. This charisma is great for inspiration. He speaks of how great the old "golden age" of animation was, and of the decline in artistic skill in the animation trade today. My interpretation of his blogs intentions is that it is an aid in rebuilding animation as an artistic trade. What I mean by 'artistic trade' is a line of skilled manual artistic work.

To be a 'real' animator you do need a well developed skill set. Fortunately, for people like me, these skill sets (techniques/methods/practices/principles whatever you want to call them) have already been developed and refined.

Read the rest at Sam Howie's Animation Submarine

Sam "gets it". The $100,000 Cartoon Drawing Course is a lot tougher than it looks on the surface. But if you dig in and learn the fundamentals, you'll be well rewarded for your effort.

Get to work!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: John Kricfalusi Writes...

Our cartoon heritage is quickly disappearing from history. You don't see many classic cartoons on television anymore- certainly not black and white cartoons. The Golden Age of Cartoons, classified by historians to be generally from 1928 to 1960 is dominated in most people's minds by Walt Disney's features and the Warner Bros. cartoons, which are often seen in "restored" edited, cut and recolored versions that don't look like the films as they were created by the original artists.

There's a lot more to the story... There were many lesser-known studios that contributed to the development of cartoons as well: the Fleischers, Terrytoons, Famous Studios, and Columbia. Wonderful cartoons made by these studios and many others are almost completely impossible to see anymore. You can find a few bad prints of public domain cartoons on cheapie DVDs, but the vast library of classics has practically vanished from history and worse, from the attention of new audiences that could enjoy them and young cartoonists that could benefit from them.

Animators today have a very hard time finding the best cartoons ever made to help them learn and be proud of their craft.



The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is coming to our rescue. Stephen Worth, with the help of private collectors, is amassing a huge collection of classic cartoons and logging them by studio and chronology to make these lost films available to the public, while the owners of the cartoons are just letting them collect dust in vaults.

At the Archive, not only can you view the cartoons, you can also see a great collection of cartoon related art- art that inspired many of the animators of the past. Children's book illustrations, comic books, comic strips... it's all there. ASIFA-Hollywood is also collecting interviews and articles about cartoonists, animators and illustrators to tell the history of animation through the stories of the artists who created it.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is something I wish I had when I was a kid. It's an invaluable storehouse of lost techniques from an artform that developed to its highest peak during the 30s to the 50s.

If you can't physically visit the Archive facility in Burbank, the Archive has a great blog that features samples of all the stuff and informative articles about the artists. The address of it is www.animationarchive.org.

To a cartoonist or cartoon fan, the archive is our Louvre! Thanks to Steve and all the collectors who have contributed and to all the good folks at ASIFA-Hollywood for making it happen!

John Kricfalusi

To contribute, please see the... Contribution Categories Page

Donate online using our PayPal button...

To join ASIFA-Hollywood, please see the Membership Page

Contributions can be sent to...

ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506

When contributing to this project, please write ARCHIVE DONATION on the subject line of your check.

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Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Functional Drawing

NOTE: Do not move on to this lesson unless you have completed Lesson One, Lesson Two, Lesson Three, Lesson Four, Lesson Five, Lesson Six, Lesson Seven, Lesson Eight, Lesson Nine, and Lesson Ten

FUNCTIONAL DRAWING

Read John Kricfalusi's lesson at...
Functional Drawing Part One: Layout & Posing



I will add links to the further lessons in this topic as John posts them.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Comics: Dan Gordon's Superkatt

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 2 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about print cartoonists.

The other day, John K posted an article in his blog about Dan Gordon. He described Gordon as a "pure cartoonist" whose characters seem really alive and motivated from within.

Gordon was an animator, story man and director on the Superman and Popeye series at Fleischer in the early 1940s. After the war, he dropped out of animation and made a living as a comic book artist, working on titles like Giggle Comics. He returned to animation in the late 1950s as a storyboard artist at Hanna Barbera, (Gordon boarded the pilot episode of The Flintstones) and on Clampett's Beany & Cecil series.

Here is an example of Gordon's work featuring Superkatt. These scans were donated to the Archive by our good friend Kent Butterworth. Thanks Kent!










For more on Dan Gordon, see Sherm Cohen's great features at Cartoon Snap.

If you enjoyed this comic, see also... Milt Stein's Supermouse Comics No. 4, Basil Wolverton's Powerhouse Pepper, and Boody Rogers' Babe Comics Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

12.10.08
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Story: Ren & Stimpy Big House Blues Seq 03

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for more amazing animation related articles.



It's been quite a while since I posted an installment of the storyboard to the pilot episode of the original Ren & Stimpy Show, Big House Blues. ASIFA-Hollywood owes a debt of gratitude to John Kricfalusi for generously sharing this material with us. This is a fascinating look at the Genesis of one of the most successful animated TV shows of all time. If you missed it, see Part One of this storyboard and Part Two.

BIG HOUSE BLUES PART THREE


















I will be posting the last section of this storyboard soon.

For the first two sections of this storyboard, see... Big House Blues Seq. 1 and Big House Blues Seq. 2. For more Ren & Stimpy stuff, see... John K's Stimpy's Invention and our profile of Vincent Waller

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Biography: John K on Flintstones Animators

Meet The Stars of the Flintstones
by John Kricfalusi (from The Flintstones laserdisc set)


When I grew up, I used to watch "The Flintstones" in syndication every day and I began to notice that the characters would look different in each cartoon. I eventually figured out that they must have been drawn by different animators, each of whom had their own individual traits.


Comic book nerds like me have always been able to tell the difference- say, between a Steve Ditko Spiderman and a Todd McFarlane Spiderman; but in animation, the tendency for most studios is to force all the artists to try to draw the characters the same way. This is called drawing "on model".


Ed Benedict, who designed the Flintstones is really mad that all the animators drew the characters in their own style, or "off model". Luckily for us, Hanna-Barbera didn't have time to have the animators learn to draw the characters before they started animating!


I love cartoons where you can tell the animators apart. Bob Clampett's Warner Bros. cartoons are like this. And so are the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The tricky part is figuring out what names belong to what drawing and animation styles! "The Flintstones" when it runs in syndication, has a stock set of credits on the end of each episode. They list four animators. And, if the names ever agree with the persons who actually animated a particular episode, it's sheer coincidence. And get this... In the early days of Hanna-Barbera, one animator would animate a whole 25 minute cartoon by himself!


So, this is what we've done for the likes of you- Henry Porch (my sound editor) and I have assembled clips of each animators' work so you can finally figure out who's who! I know that each and every one of you is licking your lips in anticipation as one of life's more succulent mysteries is about to disrobe and reveal its undergarments for you.
--John Kricfalusi

KEN MUSE


Click on the image to see a movie of Ken Muse scenes.
Ken Muse's style is easy to spot when you see it, but hard to describe in words. That's why we put the clips together! An obvious trait of his is the way he draws Fred's eye bags. The line under his eye is parallel to it. Also, he draws upside down smile lines. He generally puts less expressions and poses into his cartoons than the other animators do. He's sort of the bland one, although some of the coolest drawings ever of the Flintstones are in "The Swimming Pool". Check out Fred driving his car in the beginning of the cartoon. Or Fred lying down and staring out the window. This is before he got used to drawing the characters and began drawing "on model". Muse worked on Tom & Jerry before Hanna and Barbera opened up their own studio.

DON PATTERSON


Click on the image to see a movie of Don Patterson scenes.
Don Patterson is a very funny animator. He loves to do wacky walks and runs and goofy eye takes. He never seems to repeat expressions and actions. He custom designs his work to match what's going on in the story. He draws the characters "off model" when they need to act. He sometimes give the characters "Smurf eyes"- the two eyeball whites joined into one. Patterson came from Walter Lantz's studio, where he animated Woody Woodpecker and Wally Walrus and all your other favorites.

CARLO VINCI


Click on the image to see a movie of Carlo Vinci scenes.
Carlo Vinci is the master of Flintstone. He handles him clean, smooth, without shame. Here's how to spot him... Carlo loves drawing crooked poses with the characters' appendages- the head, the hands, the pelvic girdle- all pointing different directions. Keep your eyes peeled for socially unacceptable (in some circles) wrist actions. He likes to flip the wrist around- have the hand up, then flip down, then twist around, fingers wiggling, taking turns sticking up- it's truly a joy to watch.

He utilizes the butt generously. Remember the old Yogi Bear cartoons? The ones where Yogi bops up and down to bongo beats? That's Carlo. He's always thinking of you. In Carlo's hands, Fred's butt is a sensative emoting creature. He also draws quite a few meaty expressions on the characters, whereas some other animators are stingy with their expressions.

Carlo came from Terrytoons, where he animated for about 30 years. He did Gandy Goose, Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle and all your favorite New York cartoons. His specialty was singing and dancing. Hey, get this! Carlo met young Joe Barbera back in the '30s at Terrytoons and taught him how to animate. Carlo did great stuff for Terrytoons, but I think he was made for Hanna Barbera. His animation style combined with Ed Benedict's designs created a whole new entertainment experience. Count on Carlo to deliver a quality package to you.

Read more about Carlo Vinci

GEORGE NICHOLAS


Click on the image to see a movie of George Nicholas scenes.
George Nicholas draws really well. When I was a kid I'd see his cartoons and say. "There's the good artist." He's the one who draws really solid, almost "pretty" designs. He's also great with the girls. He makes them look cute and sexy. Another Nicholas trait is he likes to have the tongues flop around in his characters' mouths. Like Carlo Vinci and Don Patterson, he custom designs new expressions and poses to fit the characters' moods according to how they feel in the context of the story at each particular instant. This is unlike many animators, who strictly draw their expressions off the model sheets. This model sheet approach is what most cartoons use today, which is why everything looks and feels so generic now. The characters always make the same expressions, rather than act according to the situation.

Mark Kausler, the world's greatest animator, says, "Nicholas has the richest, fullest looking dialogue animation on the early Flintstones shows. Instead of using just a straight up and down 'head bob' formula, he varies it by shaking the head 'yes' and 'no' to the mood of the dialogue accompanied by a shrugging gesture. He also uses a special sarcastic head rotation in perspective for some lines. He uses a unique 'beady eyed' expression on his characters, drawing tiny pupils in Fred's eyes when he's getting an idea or when he's hypnotized by something. He draws big, fat fingers on Fred's hands, especially in pointing gestures, like in the Frog Mouth episode."

Before Hanna-Barbera, George worked for years at Disney, where he animated for Nick Nicholas' Pluto unit.

ED LOVE


Click on the image to see a movie of Ed Love scenes.
Ed Love's most obvious trait is his real cool "upside down curly mouths". Watch when his characters talk. The mouth is also a little bit to the side. His action style is very 'springy'. Mark Kausler says it's because he 'slows out' of everything. That's hi-falutin' animator talk. He has a way of making limited TV animation look like full animation by the way he does his timing. It's very smooth.

Before Hanna-Barbera, Ed had a quite varied career. His first animation job was on Disney's first color cartoon- "Flowers and Trees". He animated Mickey getting stomped on by brooms in "Sorcerer's Apprentice". He animated for Tex Avery in the early 40s on "Screwball Squirrel", "Red Hot Riding Hood" and other classic cartoons. From the mid to late '40s, he worked for Walter Lantz. He animated a Woody Woodpecker cartoon, "Drooler's Delight" completely by himself.

In the early 50s, he did commercials for Ray Patin. A really cool one was for General Mills' Corn Kix. Ed animated the Kix Man, who is made of corn balls. He animated the Trix kids before there was a Trix Rabbit. He animated some of Hanna-Barbera's best commercials from the late 50s and early 60s- the Kelloggs' cereal commercials starring Huck, Yogi, Quick Draw and all your other wonderful cartoon pals.



Recently, John Kricfalusi has been elaborating on these musings at his blog, All Kinds of Stuff. Check out these posts...

Pluto Animator Animates The Flintstones- George Nicholas
The Flintstone Flyer- Carlo Vinci Part One
The Flintstone Flyer- Carlo Vinci
I Want You To Love Carlo Vinci
Carlo Vinci Dancing
Ed Benedict 1912-2006



Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Media: John K's Storyboard For Stimpy's Invention

In his blog, All Kinds Of Stuff, John Kricfalusi has been discussing how he structures his stories. It's fascinating reading, you should definitely check it out.

John generously donated the archives of Spumco to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive last year. We're still in the process of cataloging the material, but I wanted to share a particularly important item with you today.

Here is an excerpt from the original storyboard to "Stimpy's Invention". Most of this board is by Bob Camp; supplemented by a few xeroxes of layout drawings by Chris Reccardi. Take a moment and read John K's notes on how he constucts his stories... (Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four and his post on Outlining Stories) and then take a look at how the theories are implemented in this section of board. I will be posting more from this sequence next week, so you can see how the excitement builds.






























































For more Ren & Stimpy images, see our profile of Vincent Waller and the storyboards for... Big House Blues Seq. 1, Big House Blues Seq. 2 and Big House Blues Seq. 3.

For more on cartoon writing see... Writing Cartoons: Part One- The Gag Session, Part Two- A Continuity Emerges, Part Three- Structure and Part Four- The Rough Board

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

6.12.08
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Media: Spumco- Vincent Waller

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see the bonus reason on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts featuring animation art.


Concept drawing from "Rubber Nipple Salesmen"
Two years ago, John Kricfalusi generously donated the archives of Spumco to ASIFA-Hollywood. Included in the collection are complete storyboards, and files containing drawings grouped by artist. This allows an unique insight into the personal styles of the artists who worked on Ren & Stimpy.

As an example of the collection, I have pulled and scanned a few drawings by Vincent Waller... Vincent directed the classic Ren & Stimpy cartoon, "Rubber Nipple Salesmen" , and was a Directing Animator on R&S: Adult Party Cartoon. See what Vincent's up to lately by visiting his wonderful blog, Incoherent Thought.


Gag drawing from "Adult Party Cartoon"

Gag drawing from "Adult Party Cartoon"

Title card concept from "Onward And Upward"

Concept drawing from "Stimpy's Pregnant"

Phone doodles

Phone doodle

Character design of Ralph Bakshi as the Fire Chief in "Firedogs II"

Concept drawing for Bakshi's "On The Road"

Concept drawing for Bakshi's Sci Fi Project
For more Spumco images, see Stimpy's Invention Storyboard Part One and Part Two and the storyboards for... Big House Blues Seq. 1, Big House Blues Seq. 2 and Big House Blues Seq. 3.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

5.14.08
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