Inner Aspect Ratio

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 rips or whatever) - 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.

Look at the work of Tiffany Ford and Jasmin Lai for amazing examples of volume expressed graphically.

 4) STUDY JAMES MCMULLEN - To truly understand volume, and fully 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,

Drawing basic facial expressions is not the hardest. Most people can draw a sad face, a happy face, angry etc., but making more multidimensional expressions is more of a challenge. I have gotten a lot of compliments on how I draw facial expressions, (specifically “angsty ones”) telling me that they are very dramatic and well… expressive! And there are actually only a few things I think about when I draw faces that take them to the next level, so I thought i’d illustrate them all here!

SUPER IMPORTANT TIP BEFORE WE START: Look at your own face when you draw faces. Even making the face when you are drawing (you don’t even have to look at it), will give you some sense of how the face muscles pull and where things fold and stretch, because you can feel it. You are the best reference when it comes to facial expressions!

Angles 

Draw the head in an angle that matches the expressions you want to make. It is not a requirement, but is going to add to the effect.

Symmetry vs asymmetry 

A face is rarely symmetric. Unless the face the character is making is 100 % relaxed or even dissociating, the eyebrows, mouth and facial muscles will have different placements of their respective side. This image shows the dramatic impact asymmetry has on a face: 

That’s the difference between a smile and a smirk!

The first one’s like “oh yeah?” and the second is like “oH YEAH??”

The “balloon squishing principle”

This is something I did subconsciously, and I didn’t know about until I made this tutorial. And this principle goes hand in hand with an asymmetric face. Basically, if you squish one part of the face, you need to even out the empty space by “inflating” the other part of the face so that it doesn’t appear shrunken. The picture hopefully explains it:

Teeth 

Don’t forget to add the gum when the mouth is open to its full potential!

Squinting and folding

Adding folds around the eyes when a character is squinting makes a HUGE difference. It makes a smile more genuine and a growl more intimidating. Adding folds to the face in general makes your characters more lifelike and ‘visually relatable’. Like, they look human, and less plastic or fake.

and so on..

Pupils and irises 

The placement of the iris and pupil in relation to the eyelids is very important! The less of the white you see, the more relaxed the character is. 

And then of course eyebrows and eyes go hand in hand!

Gestures, spitting, sweating… 

Adding more elements than just a face is key to making the character actually look like they are feeling what you want them to feel. Just the tiniest sweat drop adds to their anxiety, spitting adds frustration to their rage, slouching shoulders, waving hands, a double chin, extreme angles, the list goes on! Add whatever and see what kind of impact it makes! Does it do the trick? Great! Add it! 

Over exaggeration!! 

Remember that you can almost always exaggerate more. Don’t be afraid to do draw “too much” because you’re just experimenting. See what works and what doesn’t. What do you like to exaggerate?

Now that you know some theory, it’s time to practice!

Practicing!! 

The 25 Essential Expressions (a classic! I’ve done it multiple times)

And the one I do when I’m bored:

Fill a page with circles and fill them in with different expressions. Try and exaggerate as much as you can! 

This is mostly for experimenting. They are quicker to draw than complete faces, but the same rules should apply!

And that’s about it!

Girl Is Not a 4 Letter Word

I follow a lot of skateboarders and skate companies for Street Angel research. One of my favorite resources is Girl Is Not a 4 Letter Word. It’s founder, Cindy Whitehead’s goal is to give women in action sports the same opportunities and recognition as their male counterparts. She pursues that goal daily by interviewing and promoting female action sports athletes on her companies website http://www.girlisnota4letterword.com

I drew Jesse wearing a couple of her GN4LW shirts (I couldn’t pick just one) and she liked them! So now I’m sharing those drawings with you! I hope you like them too. 

Here are a couple of related TEDtalks, first is Cindy Whitehead:

Here is GN4LW team member, Poppy Starr Olsen giving a TEDtalk about the relationship between art and skateboarding in her life:

See more great skateboarders, shirts, gear, and inspiration: Girl Is Not a 4 Letter Word

Find me at Air Capital Comiccon this weekend (Nov. 12+13) in Wichita.

Pay me to draw more Street Angel comics on PATREON!

Hey, everybody!

Just wanted to let you know that I’ve launched a new Kickstarter Campaign to fund the printing of two new books: Precious Rascals and Doodle Quest 2! One is collecting all the comic strips I’ve been making. The other is a sketch collection of drawings as a follow up to my first sketchbook Doodle Quest.

If you’ve been enjoying the comics of my family or the drawings that I post here, please consider backing the project or passing along the word. Every little bit helps!

Batman The Animated Series posters 

Your search for meaning is valid.

The meaning I drew from this quote was to draw what excites me in the ACT of drawing. …what excites me in the act of drawing, not the subject that excited me. …to draw in a way that the act of drawing excites me. If you follow. …and not spend too much time worrying about what my work SHOULD look like. 

This way of thinking has saved me a lot of stress when I can remember it.

Inspiration is a funny thing.

There is an amount of practice required to gain a level of proficiency, to communicate your ideas. Another level is to be able to use a portion of someone else’s language. 

If you are humble and wise, you can be happy, and with a little luck, successful with that first level. 

The second level is a mixed blessing. Other people’s vocabulary is useful, but the better you are at using other people’s language the more difficult it becomes to hear your own voice, and it could be tempting to just not listen for it at all. 

This is a cruel exchange of thrusts: In the art, a more deceptive thrust than this cannot be made. You attacked me with the point and I have given you this; And I can make more secure it by voiding out of the way.

This play is called ‘Exchanging Thrusts’ (scambiar de punta), and you have to do it in this way: When someone delivers you a thrust, immediately step forward/advance (acresse) your forefoot, out of the way, and with the other foot pass traversing (a la traversa) again out of the way, crossing (traversando) his sword with your arms lowered and with the point of your sword high, to his head or his chest, as is drawn.

Gabourey Sidibe - Portrait by Sam Spratt

A while back, I asked Gabby to come to my studio. Work immediately began and the beginnings of several sketches and pieces started to come together, but I didn’t want to rush the main painting so I shelved it while the usual pattern of clients interrupting personal work took over. Many paintings never get finished or see the light of day, both personal and professional, but Gabby was special. I wrote these notes back during her visit:

Her time in my studio was mostly light, filled with her bubbly energy as we cracked open some beers, exchanged embarrassing drinking stories, taking group photos as if we’d known each other for more than the actual hour we had, and her trying to convince me that she has an actual medical condition where she finds everything adorable. You’d be fooled too if you were lied to by an Oscar-nominated actress with her talent. But when I asked her, stripped of any pretension, that if I were to paint her, how she’d like to be portrayed, she said “I don’t really care about how I’m portrayed” and then she paused and continued “I guess … did you ever watch the show Community? Ya know how the school’s mascot is the human being? I mean, I don’t want to be a grey faceless spandex blob like that, but I’d like to just be a human being. Not someone’s message or idea of what I stand for because of what I look like, just a human, how you’d paint me if I were anyone else".

You can still get this handbook by making a donation to the Rowhouse Residency! $35 gets you the book plus shipping worldwide.

Suiyoubi no Campanella, which translates to English as Wednesday’s Little Bell, is a pop trio based in Tokyo, formed around the concept of “mis-match”, creating a unique blend of music coupled with nonsensical lyrics heavy in historical and pop cultural reference.

Normally a post like this would start out with a list of similar acts to give newcomers a reference point, but Suiyoubi no Campanella’s music really does defy any of my attempts to explain it in an easy-to-understand fashion. A little bit of lounge and a tinge of disco mixed with some hip-hop beats, coupled with a vocal delivery that flits back and forth between singing and spoken word, Suiyoubi no Campanella’s music is something you kind of have to listen to for yourself to be able to understand.

Formed in 2012, Suiyoubi no Campanella consists of trackmaker and producer Kenmochi, self-proclaimed “anything” man and occasional music video director Dir.F, and performer KOM_I (pronounced “Komu-ai”).Kenmochi and Dir.F are strictly behind the scenes, while the performance aspect is left completely to the charismatic KOM_I, who appears alone both on stage and in promotional materials. 

And now, the good shit - here are some Suiyoubi no Campanella clips you can peruse to begin your obsession:

“Marie Antoinette” - Haunting synths weave in and out while KOM_I delivers a little background on an infamous French figure whilst wandering around Asakusa late at night. Chant along with the bridge; “Okashi o tabereba ii janai! (Let them eat cake!)” and “Furansu kakumei! (French revolution!)”

“Takehisa Yumeji” - KOM_I goes on a date with a candy apple, and then leaves him for a taiyaki pastry. Named after a Japanese poet and painter, this cut opts for KOM_I’s unpolished yet charming singing as opposed to the rapid delivery found in other tracks.

“Kung-fu Lady” - You may have seen this video floating around if you follow me! This is actually a cover of a song from an old 90s Japanese kids show, updated by Kenmochi’s production. The video was shot backwards, and features a few nifty camera tricks.

“O-shichi”- From Suiyoubi no Campanella’s debut mini-album, this is representative of the group’s general sound. Disco riffs accompany KOM_I’s trademark delivery. This was named after a Japanese historical figure famous for attempted arson. Ninjou, ninjou!ˆ

Of course, part of SnC’s appeal is KOM_I’s presence on stage, which straddles the line between live music, and performance art. Take a look at this video to see her perform to a sparse group of uninterested but polite elderly people, or just skip to 22:59 to watch her re-enact the (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ emoji on stage. Alternatively, click here to watch her perform a full set while walking through the busy streets of Shibuya at night, and marvel at the collective ability of the Japanese public to ignore her completely. (Well, we can't all be Perfume-levels of fame, can we?)

Now, I can hear your collective cries of “yaaaas” and “slaaaay” and all those other assorted utterances echo in the distance over the Internet, but where does one get a hold of her music apart from YouTube? Well, if you’re in Japan, good news! Tower Records stores across the country sell her two latest EPs and if you live in Tokyo even better, because half her discography is only purchasable at the Village Vanguard in Shimokita (yeah idk either guys). If not, well, reputable digital music merchant OTOTOY has her entire discography AND accepts international credit cards! You can even pick up the new Especia album while you’re at it!

What’s that? Oh. Okay. Well, here’s a .zip file of the mp3s I’ve collected thus far too. But if you have a chance, please support the group! Hopefully with our help they can upgrade the outdated MacBook KOM_I uses to play her backing track at concerts.

Historically, Networks do not like serialization in comedy cartoons because serialized cartoons do not rate as high in the repeats as the stand alone cartoons do. They have found that once a viewer has watched an episode and got the next part of the story, they tend to not watch that same episode when it repeats. But if the show was just a simple funny cartoon they will watch it again, because they want to laugh at the jokes again. 

So for this reason, we as the show creators are oftentimes discouraged from producing serialized shows with heavy continuity. The Networks feel they need the episodes to be stand alone for the sake of repeats, ratings and for programming a 24 hour animation channel. This has been the case since I started making cartoons in the early 90′s.

A few years ago some comedy cartoons started integrating complex and serious plots into their shows, and it was a refreshing change from the status quo. Finally we thought this was our chance to tell deeper stories and when I first started Wander back in 2011, I asked if I could make it a serialized 22-minute show.  I was simply told no. 

The Network really wanted Wander to be produced in the classic, stand alone 11 minute format, because they felt that’s where they would get the most bang for their buck. And from a programming standpoint I could understand that.

So after producing a season of silly one off cartoons we got the pick up for season 2 and we asked if we could finally try and tell a bigger story with complex continuity.  The network was open to exploring that idea, but they didn’t want to lose the looseness of season 1. 

So a COMPROMISE was reached. We would create a continuity that thread through four 22-minute episodes that were to be scattered throughout the season. The 11-minute episodes in between would be loosely related to that arc, but would still stand alone so they could be repeated in any order.

I’m writing this because I’m seeing a lot of desire for the next piece of the puzzle, the next turn of the plot, the next big change and I will honestly tell you that will not really happen until the next 22-minute episode. The following 11-minute episodes will continue to be loosely related to the arc. For instance, Hater is no longer crushing on Dominator, Wander isn’t trying to get them together, and there will be some character insights that inform the 4 part arc, but there will also be some random one-offs that really have nothing to do with the arc at all.

They shall be my finest scrublords, 

These manchildren who give themselves to me

Doucement I will guide their hips and in the furnace of brawls forge them

They will be of highest tier, with great health bars shall I clad them and with the mightiest combos they will be armed

They shall be untouched by salt or Johns, no loss will rustle them They will have such yomi, footsies and frame links such that no foe can best them in fisticuffs

They are my bulwark against the ustabiaz, they are the defenders of the humanity

They are my zaibatsu marines

and they shall know no Johns

1. Shinsekai Yori 2. Bokura No 3. Now and Then, Here and There