Reasons as to why I haven't posted for two days was because I was so busy drawing.
Here's some Preston Blair character look-alikes alongside Sovia characters.
This month was a craze of over hundreds of Leland and Roeanne doodles. I love drawing this couple.
I felt like I mentioned this before in another post but Leland and Roeanne are our modern retelling of musical romance partners from the Golden Age Of Hollywood.
I not only admire talents like Charisse, and Astaire but I love it more when their dancing, twirling, and whimsical peaceful music is playing in the background.
I miss this style of cinema so much.
You all will probably love some new Wolf drawings.
I loved drawing his muzzle.
Now here's one extremely detailed, now this will leave you impressed.
I actually fully colored one.
I thought that red was a perfectly good color for his bandana.
To end it off, here's two drawings of Roeanne. The last one is actually supposed to be a transparent image.
I was originally going to make something different this time but I wanted to focus more on Line Of Action, and that's my own influences of it. The previous post I was talking through the whole technique.
Here's a character that has alot of personality and great posing, Pecos Bill from Melody Time.
There's alot of vividly wacky stuff going on in the film, and this is one of the best segments, I especially really enjoy the action involved but this few seconds of astounding drawings really drew into me the most.
As he's ready to punch, he has a set of these scrawny arms and fists and to me I really love it.
Pecos has to be one of the most badass Disney characters I've ever seen in my life, this is him lighting a cigarette using a lightning bolt, uh that's just absoutely goshdarn cool.
Pecos Bill alongside other casts of expressive animated characters really fit Line Of Action extremely well, if they were stiff, they would be soulless.
Here's another stunning shot from an MGM cartoon you may all have heard of, Red Hot Riding Hood (1943). This has alot of anticipation and exaggeration, definitely lots of drawings of the same pose to make it stand out as something really cartoony.
Dancing is a key to using Line Of Action, it's so terrifying to see it badly-traced and floaty. It must be magic to animate a dance scene in a similar vain to old musicals and swing music videos.
I'm unsure if there was any sense of Line Of Action in some aspects of this scene in Donald's Crime (1945) but it's flawless nonetheless.
I'm striving to make something like this someday.
Great backgrounds and style choices!
This dance is re-used from Mr. Duck Steps Out by the way, it still works decently though.
Besides using Line Of Action in my drawings, it's still useful when it comes to other influences besides animation.
I have a love for dancers like Fred Astaire, Vera Ellen, and of course Gene Kelly.
I admire Gene's usual jump kick.
These are 2 of his genius poses to explore or practice drawing on your own!
I always would like to draw simpler shapes first to observe the overall static detail of the pose in order to make it look alive.
Here's another one of my favorite art influences that has a great sense of static but alive ability and Line of Action, the legendary Norman Rockwell.
I can thank Preston Blair for introducing me to this principle, I wasn't fully aware or interested in it until recently so it was very cool for me to be talking about it.
One thing I understand most about animation is what people call "Line Of Action". This to me is one of the best principles to study.
It's a useful tool, the more you use it, the more the character has a decent flow and appeal.
Much like the staging principles in Disney's Illusion Of Life. This is actually really funny and relatable but it is precisely important.
Whether it took place in a time when animation was slowly loosing it's creativity and was condemned too limited, the line of action rule never stopped it's impact.
Maybe you think it's difficult to draw a pose dramatically or lively, using smooth lines helps!
I always dreamt of animating something in vain to old hollywood musicals, they have amusing songs and great actors and actresses.
On The Town is one of my favorite movies. It has a wide selection of exploration while also having the best high-spirited cast of characters, this is a film I would highly recommend you checking out if you want to freely understand where I'm getting at with my own creative vision.
Alongside some other films I find influential and beloved like Singin' In The Rain, Anchor's Aweigh, Easter Parade, and most of the scenes in Mary Poppins, and White Christmas.
While I do like a bit of other movie genres for more variety, I do think they geniuely have weaker edges to them, they sometimes can have too much pauses, dialogue and filler in em, you don't really get to see that in musicals and that's why I love them.
If I ever get to design my own Illusion Of Life, the main step is movement and action completely. It isn't a full personality only for the looks, but the interests and motions the character has.
This is a character I recently came up with named Leland Copper. I drew him by using stock images of people dancing in freeze frames.
Likewise this picture. If your planning on drawing something similar to this man's pose, be careful, this is some high level stuff here. I know it looks fun, but believe me it'll be quite a challenge.
The Golden Age Of Animation was easily inspired by live actor's talents. Most audiences including the younger demographic watch cartoons because it's much more appealing and distracting, audiences recall Looney Tunes, Disney, Flintstones, and The Simpsons because of how the characters are portrayed in a more realistic atmosphere instead of it being overly cartoony and nonsensical.
You can tell when I love something, I carefully make sure it's positively suitable for me to enjoy otherwise I would explain the flaws, and I slowly change my mind about the entire thing, but I feel like I rarely express that with what I really love.
Even though I didn't meet with these people, I absoutely care and respect them.
Back to line of action and more inspiration...
Here's another freeze frame from On The Town, same as earlier but different set of pose.
The girl's name is Roeanne. Leland doesn't actually wear a sailor suit, just for practice.
Tap Dancing is extremely difficult to animate for obvious reasons, you have to learn the basics of timing your frames.
My favorite parts when it comes to someone tap-dancing the beat is panning the camera lower close to seeing their shoes completely moving in motion, I love this yet it's complicated to master.
You really have to stare closely right at this picture and focus closely in order to master the pose. You can clearly miss the left guy's cuffs on his pants.
Here's a screencap from White Christmas (1954). This is from one of my favorite moments in the film, Danny and Vera dancing is just beautiful, I also love the layout and production of this sequence.
What I drew first was Leland, and then carefully placed where Roeanne would hold Leland's hand. You have to really lengthen the size of this pose carefully. This was a good first attempt though.
While Appeal, and Solid Drawing is important, the principles to action like timing, overlapping and exaggeration is why animation exists as a medium and is still very useful today.
Now for the finale, I'll showcase some real tap-dancing and movement from people who know the soul of entertainment and talent.
