First Doodles and Storyboards Going Out

 These are just a few of the hundreds of phone doodles going out within the week.

Also the combo rewards of the doodle + storyboard sketches.

George Liquor Design Reference

John K Stuff: George models from layouts

John K Stuff: A Sentimental Republican

John K Stuff: Layout breakdowns - Dialogue mouths

John K Stuff: more sides of George and the Science of Close Ups

John K Stuff: George with specific expressions

John K Stuff: Need Artists Soon. Can You Draw A Republican?

Inking: Hierarchy of Head Outline and Details

The rest of the face Here:

John K Stuff: Inking: Face/Head Thick and Thin Hierarchy

Inking Tips: Weight, Wrapping Details Around Forms

I am finding that a lot of artists who want to assist and ink for me are struggling with the same problems. So rather than me giving the same notes to every artist, It would save a lot of time and trouble for me to just give the notes to everyone.
Here is an ink that on the surface looks clean. However it is also too flat - for me. The drawing has been inked line by line - as if the lines exist by themselves and this makes the characters look cold and stiff.
WEIGHT:

Here are some tips. Let's start with giving forms some weight - by putting a heavier line underneath each form.
WRAP the LINES, DON'T CUT THROUGH FORMS

Then give the lines FORM by wrapping the lines around the construction.

CONNECTIONS:

Be careful where one form connects to another as well - like where the legs and arms connect to the torso. They

LAYOUT PROCEDURE and purpose

The function of LAYOUT is:

* Make the scene easy for the animator to understand and use.

That means COMPOSING THE SCENE so that there is enough space for the animator to move the characters - and to clearly see what the characters are doing.

*Preserve the GUTS of the storyboard poses - AND HOPEFULLY TO PUSH THEM FURTHER.

Here is more detail on how to plan a scene for layout:

John K Stuff: Scene Planning For TV - Setups for storyboard and layout 5: Roughing The Widest Staging

***Ideally, a layout artist should be an animator with a sense of design and composition. The most skillful artists that combine great draftsmanship with a personal style are the artists best suited to layout.

That's a hard combination to find these days.

Any Toonboom Inkers Familiar with my style?

Hi folks

I'm getting started on the cartoon here.

If you have already inked some of my characters in the past and can use Toonboom Animate I might have some scenes for you to work on.

Here are some inking tips:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/inking-advanced-pt-1-logical-line.html
I had a good post on how to ink faces - using inks by the amazing Brian Romero, but the images seem to have disappeared from the page. They must have been from a blog post of his that he has since deleted.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/inking-emotional-line-weight.html

Tips For Constructing Faces

The head is made up of 2 major parts:

1) the Cranium - which is generally solid (except in exaggerated instances of cartoon license)

2) the Jaw Area- is more movable and can squash and stretch

CONNECTING THE CRANIUM and LOWER FACE PARTS

The upper and lower parts of the head are connected by MEAT:

cheeks, and upper lip.

The rest of the features have to conform to what positions the cranium, jaw and cheeks are in.

Eyes sit in the cranium but are affected by the mouth and cheeks.

Eyebrows both affect and are affected by the eyeballs.

The mouth is affected by 2 things:

1) Whether the jaw is open or closed.

2) The shape of the lips.

John K Stuff: Lips and Mouth Accessories

Every part of the anatomy affects the others.

If you change the shape of one thing, the other parts have to change (to a lesser extent with it).

The farther away from whichever muscle is moving, the less affected the other parts are.

John K Stuff: Hierarchy 2 - The Facial Expression in broad strokes