Untitled

The Mantra That Keeps Us Going

Been thinking of her during my hiatus.

this is the perfect grade of good luck

Dear E. 

Thanks for your email.

I don’t work at Cartoon Network any more. But I’m going to give you a very quick portfolio review in hopes that you find it helpful! Here are some things I noticed when looking at your stuff - lessons I learned from brilliant people while working on AT for two years: 

 1) AVOID SYMMETRY. Humans are organic, randomly shaped animals. Perfect symmetry rarely exists in nature and if it does, it’s conspicuous - it’s the exception rather than the rule. Find interesting ways to throw your characters off-balance. 

Don’t repeat objects in twos - (buttons or collars or rips) - it feels prescribed - cluster things in threes or fives if necessary. 

 2) AVOID CONCAVITY - I don’t know what else to call this. But it’s those lines that go “in” rather than “out”. You are using inward sloping lines to describe many of your characters. As an exercise, try using outward, rounded, voluminous lines to draw EVERYTHING. Humans are fleshy lumps connected together by other fleshy lumps. Each mass is either in front of or behind other masses and as a designer, it’s your job to tell the animator where it is. As a designer, you are providing a technical blueprint for the location of masses. 

Only occasionally allow a concavity to connect two convexities. Look at the work of Robert Ryan Cory (spongebob), Tom Herpich (Adventure Time) or Phil Rynda (AT / Gravity Falls) - master character designers - for examples of this. If you need to, trace a couple of their drawings and you will see what I mean. 

 3) AVOID GRAPHIC DETAILS - Some shows use a graphic style; it’s very appealing and looks clever when done right. But in animation, everything needs to move in space - so if you use a graphic element - it needs to correspond with an actual 3D thing that can move. Therefore it is better to start with a voluminous style and then revert to graphic elements where appropriate. Art directors will look for this. Do not jump straight to graphic representation if you do not yet know what you are representing. 

 4) STUDY JAMES MCMULLEN - To truly understand volume, and respect your subject, you should read very carefully High Focus Figure Drawing by James McMullen. Slow down and think about drawing “around” your subjects. It’s a truly meditative experience when you get there. Think about the weight and mass that your characters, props and effects are experiencing. Many students from SVA - Tomer Hanuka, Becky Cloonan, Rebecca Sugar, James Jean - studied under McMullen’s philosophy and you can see this common richness in their work. 

Jeffrey Smith, a top student of McMullen’s now teaches life drawing at Art Center. These are two of the best illustration schools in North America - anyone who is interested in drawing living things, should probably read his book. Also look at the work of Andy Ristaino or Danny Hynes - two other character designers’ whose work is seething with volume. 

I hope this is useful and I hope you have a wonderful career. 

Warmest,

So i’m making a second version of this post since the first version really doesn’t have a lot of notes and also I changed the campaign name. I’m a genderqueer mentally and chronically ill person trying to escape my abusive home, especially my mother, who sexually and emotionally abused me. I currently rely on my parents for health insurance to cover the cost of insulin and needles for my Diabetes, anxiety medication, and overall just most things. I plan on leaving them in early May of 2017, but I’m currently unemployed and don’t have much money in my bank account. I have less than 9 months to raise the $2,800 I’m going to need for doctor’s appointments, medicaid, food, a new phone, etc. 

Tactical Denial

I’m going to help train our friend, I won’t stand to see him take this abuse any longer

After all this time fighting, the little guy and his enemy realized that it was all pointless. Since the beginning, the hate for each other had only make them stronger but by accepting their differences and learning to respect each other, they realized that they don’t have to keep being rivals, but perhaps something else.

the rent is coming and i had a few donations. i am still needing around $230. anything can make a huge difference. please, if you can help me, do this. i have 5 more days to pay. thanks for everything, guys.

please, don’t send me hatefull messages, these kind of thing ruins my day. please, be kind. if you can’t say good things, don’t say anything.

gofundme // [email protected] ~ my email for paypal (you need to choose “payment for products”) - please, if you can help us, through paypal i pay only one tax. gofundme charges 3 different taxes, is way more expensive.