Classic Cartoon Backgrounds

 Classic Animation is important for alot of reasons. 

The characters are timeless.

The soundtrack is pleasent.

And the backgrounds are massive. 

So I'm willing to give you some backgrounds I found in classic animated shorts. Feel free to download them if you like.

Two Crows From Tacos (1956)

Funny Little Bunnies (1934)

No Sail (1945)

Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943)

Victory Vehicles (1943)

Tweet Tweet Tweety (1951)

Little Quacker (1950)

Cross Country Detours (1940)

Mouse In Manhattan (1945)

Road To Bali (1952) 

This isn't a classic cartoon, it's just a mention as is, it is a classic movie.

Book Revue (1946)

Crowing Pains (1947)

Klondike Casanova (1946)

Daffy Duck Hunt (1949)

Duck Dodgers In The 24 1/2th Century (1953)

Pluto's Purchase (1948)

Classic Cartoon Cels

Another Classic Animated tool that people used back then were called Animation Cels. Yes, back then they pretty much drew the characters, had paint to color them in and put it on the background in every single frame. How cool is that? I'll show you what it looks like. 

I'm willing to watch Fantasia (1940) this month. I seen a few clips and it looks massive.

Animation Cels have been around since well, animation has started to exist. 

Sometimes you would focus on one object/character at a time. One cel you have the seal, and the 2nd cel you have Mickey Mouse. Making both of those cels stick onto the background. I learned that from a video I recently watched. 

Cell 1 - Teacup

Cell 2 - Teapot (without handle)

Cell 3 - Handle for teapot

Cell 4 - Pink Panther

The cels that were used there were pretty much used when animation was considered going through a downfall in the 60s to 70s.

This is what people say is the worst animation ever by that time period and to my expense to the animation I don't mind it.

This had huge effort somehow.

Nice. These are characters from Wind In The Willows (1949) my favorite Disney film.

You can tell that sometimes when you find cel animation online or whatever, there's a little bit of messy detail on the characters.

The old vintage camera is where it's at it when everything is ready to go and the animation starts to feel it's motion and prepares for what is behold on the movie screen, TV or whatever.

Throughout the 80s to 90s, cel animation was still used commonly with animators. However it came to a close when people were all over computers and modern era technology around the early 2000s. 

Behind the scenes, animation nowadays on the computer still has a pack of 2D films but also 3D to make it more realistic and vibrant. Its coming to an age where animation is a passion and involves in alot of different resources and genres, airing in movie theaters, now getting 100M-1B dollars at the box office with each and every animated film.

I had fun talking about this, since animation is literally striking again and having an audience far more than ever. I'm willing to animate in the future and making people happy. 

Hope you enjoy your day and I'll see you next time! Bye-a 👋 

Classic Cartoon Model Sheets

 

Classic Cartoon Model Sheets have been a resource for animators to draw the characters and movements for nearly a century now and is one of the most iconic things when studying animation not only because there is rotation and expressions behind the scenes, but it's generally important. Like me these pictures I'm showing you can give you a perspective of the creations of characters and how they should work. You may think this is difficult and hard to draw, but it's easy for young animators like me to do anything your heart desires to make a pleasing cartoon for everyone. 

Here's how I first discovered them.

It all started when I almost finished 11th grade, I was overwhelmed alot of the time cuz I had to go 5 days a week at school, and my classes were boring, mostly scribbled on my sketchbook and would do anything for making cartoons like Tex Avery and Disney until I looked into an animation website and this is what basically was the first picture I saw, "Construction Of The Head". I said "What the heck is this?" and something like "That's just utter logic nonsense!" I was kinda stubborn as a 16 year old and didn't know how to be more confident, so I rarely cared about the thing. 

A few days later after my complaints, I started to get along with it, it felt like a trusted tool and could save me from animating and learning how to rotate my characters. This is what classic animation was like back then for the most part. Mostly 1940s animation was like that. Heck it all started back in the 30s. 

I was starting to like classic animation just for these model sheets alone, and the style it brought for. After graduating 11th grade, I started to get myself into watching Fleischer cartoons, Classic Disney shorts, and more Tom and Jerry. I was extremely joyful more than ever and had more interests in my life except having only Looney Tunes be a thing to me. And by that time when I watched classic cartoons, I was more into looking at certain aesthetics from that time period. The 20s to 50s. Those decades also had the best music ever, the best entertainers, the best movies, and one of the best magazine covers to date.

    Some Donald Duck model sheets. Amazing.

                                      Cute.

The person who decided to invent the idea of having cartoon characters and models being used for guidance is genius.

Now you would say this, "All of these model sheets were specifically made when cartoonists needed to draw it by hand and not on screen, and while that is true, when cases happen when you animate on a computer, the easiest bet is to draw it handrawn first and then once you feel good about the way you designed your character, the face, the rotation, you can simply follow the paper you just drew and draw it on the screen. It may not be extremely fluid but it's a good way to know your route to animating what most people do nowadays. Including me which I use Digicel Flipbook and it's amazing as a beginner animator. 

And while I'm almost finished I want to show you my model sheets I drawn when I was 16.

I will see you all next time on what I will cover next. Have a good day. Bye-a! 👋 

Classic Cartoon Title Cards

 

This is from one of my favorite classic cartoons, Kitty Kornered (1946). As you can see after the iconic Looney Tunes intro plays in the background, you'll see a really detailed and well drawn title card to know what your getting into. It has a certain aesthetic and charm to it that really gets you going and finding it a good watch, but in some other cases, introductions to a classic cartoon can also have unique styles. 

In mostly the Tom and Jerry classic shorts, they would have a silhouette within the characters, and I always found that to be cool. 

In one of Tweety's first few apperances, he usually is in his cage singing his main theme song. Also, in Donald Duck's cartoons back in the 40s, he would have a theme song played in the background. It's extremely catchy and timeless if you ask me.

Heads are pretty much a main staple to classic cartoons ever since Mickey Mouse, and it can also lead you to excitement on who will be in the cartoon. Back when these aired on TV, I guess, they wouldn't let you know what cartoon it would be until a title card would show up, but sometimes it would have a head shown to give you a clear understanding. Seriously I need to do something like this. Not only does the classic animation era use the heads in the title cards but also classic comedy, and modern cartoons usually does it as well. 

In House Of Mouse, every 20 minute episode, they usually would show you a short film and they would have the classic designed faces at the start. It's good to see that the people who made this underrated show, had a true passion with the classic shorts made in the 40s and would tell you that, "You know, these are funny!" 

In the classic comedy era not specifically cartoon related, for example The Three Stooges had their heads shown at the start. I always have excitement when this is shown whenever I watch an episode with them.

I'm not expecting every artist to draw cartoony like how classic cartoons were back then. That would be mean and aggressive. People can of course have their own style of art. But when it comes to me and some people however, they LOVE to bring back the classic animation just for the sake of passion like I have. Cat Burglar also has heads for the title cards. And the cartoon itself is a solid passion and love for Tex Avery cartoons, and what's so unique is that it involves trivia, I mean I don't love it but the answers in them are hilarious. 

Something like this, is kinda interesting!

What about this? This looks nice.

In conclusion, title cards are what specifically makes you want to pay attention to the screen and see what the film has to offer. It's simple and unique, and pretty much easy to do if you want to animate like this. 

Heck, I made some right now myself. 😀

Feeling better already looking at my art? It will become a main thing on my blog. So stick around to see what's in store next time 👀