Studies and practice

Hanna Barbera studies

2009-06-21T17:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a bunch of assorted studies of classic HB characters I did as practice for some character designs I did for a project I'm working on for somebody (yes, I was aiming for that sort of style, I know alot of cartoons these days use designs originating from Ed Benedict's, but I wanted to go back to the source rather than taking the really angular, inorganic direction they've taken over the years).

I think almost everything here was thieved from John K's blog.

Barney's so easy to draw.

I did some Jetsons studies, but decided I didn't want to go with such an angular style. I prefer the more organic earlier stuff.
A couple from the Flintstones: On the Rocks special. I wonder what people think of that movie. I thought it was pretty funny but Fred's such an asshole in it he almost loses any likeability. He was never that bad in the cartoons, was he? Some Carlo Vinci drawings. I love this guy's stuff!
I actually find Fred kind of hard to construct. Am I doing him right? It feels a big vague to me to just do that head shape straight off. Is it meant to be made of more shapes, or what? Some of these might look like I just drew them freehand rather than constructing them, but I swear I was trying to do it right. I don't think I always GOT it right, though. Oh well, we learn.

I finally man up and post some old contruction studies.

2009-06-21T16:34:00.001-07:00

I said I would, so I am. These are all old now, but I refrained from posting them, partly because they started to get worse after the first batch, and partly because my laptop's hard drive died, and the temporary computer I was on wouldn't work with my scanner, and then I forgot about them. I'm baring my soul here, but we all gotta suffer for our art, right? (I think I need to suffer some more, though, by the looks of these).

I actually did this one twice, and the second one is (mostly) an improvement.

That muzzle again.

This I really screwed up the first time. I think I actually just measured the whole thing wrong.

The second one is worse here. Aaaaaaaaaargh.
Starts to get really shakey here.

Gaaah. Always the ears and arms.

Well this one's not all that bad apart from the right edge.

I really don't know how I got the angle of the head so wrong.

Well this isn't too bad, considering it's more difficult than the ones I'd been doing up to here.

The proportions are okay, at least, just got lots of angles and lines wrong.

Well, I guess they weren't ALL as bad as I thought, but lots of really dodgy ones, still. I better get some more done so I can hopefully start actually improving again.

First post

2009-03-22T14:38:00.001-07:00

No bullshit, here's some Preston Blair construction studies, in chronological order.

Sometimes I can't decide how I should try to match things up when I superimpose my study over the original. Here I tried to match the eye area rather than the muzzle, other times I've matched the overall size. I guess it doesn't matter too much either way, it still shows what's off.

God-damn muzzles.

The proportions here are getting better. Except for that ear. I hate this dog's ears! All the ones I've done since this have been of this dog, since there are lots of drawings of him.

Very off.

This was quicker than the others. It takes me up to an hour to do these, which seems like a bloody age. Am I just retarded? (experience says yes) I tried to do this one in the time it takes my laptop to start up. Hilariously, I ended up with tons of time to spare (the thing's dying, sometimes it takes about 20 minutes). It was about as off as you'd expect, I guess.

This one's nearly there!

One thing I haven't been doing is retrying the same one after lining them up. If you're the type who snoops filenames you'll also see that I haven't been doing these terribly frequently. I have no real excuse, but John K wasn't lying when he said this was a frustrating and difficult thing to do! If only I could've just been made to do this at university, it's much easier to do things when somebody's actually making you do them! I shall try to man up and press on, but I am not known amongst my close friends for manliness.