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Inking Test in Toonboom
Some folks have been sending me some pretty good inking samples. If you want to do a test on an actual scene in Toonboom, let me know.
Here's a swell George by Julian.
I like Ethan too.
He has a nice sense of organic form.
His inks of the characters feel alive.
Paul is good but still a bit mechanical. Some of his curves look like he is using a circle template. It could
Dream Pets To Draw 1: Crotchy
Here's Crotchy the Pup proudly displaying himself so you can learn to draw toy anatomy.
Crotchy has always dreamed of being a nude life model - see his sad puppy eyes
Thanks to the generosity of Auralynn and her magic toy-cam now you can help him realize his dream.
Drawing toys is a very good way to sharpen your construction and perspective skills.
Use his seams to help
Posing: FRAMING one character's pose with another's
This is a good technique to use with the others I have been tailing about.
You can have one character's pose create a frame around the other's.
The frame is created by the space between the 2 characters.
This makes the 2 poses easier to read and it looks swell too.
You can also use background elements as framing devices.
The master of this (and other posing
Inking: Hold the big forms together with consistent line weight
Here is an ink of Slab that Paul did. Paul is quite talented and his lines are real clean. Almost 2 clean
But the character's form doesn't hold together because of the inconsistencies in line weights. My eye is drawn right to his chin because of the super heavy line there. I should be looking at the whole character, not one insignificant part of him.
Also his head doesn't
Posing: Action and Reaction
The most obvious simplest way to compose 2 characters talking to each other is
have the one who is talking lean towards the one who is listening
the listening character leans back at less of an angle than the speaker leans forward
Aim the eyes at each other too for good communication between the characters
Of course you don't always want to use that formula. It wouldn't be
Posing: Static VS Dynamic
Here is a scene with characters in dynamic poses. They look alive.Here are some characters in static poses. 1) evenly spaced apart2) Standing straight up and downThis is obviously a publicity shot - and those are usually kind of bland and generic for some reason.Here is another static evenly spaced group of characters from a comic.Compare to a more lively couple of poses.Fred and Barney's poses
CONTRASTS in successive poses
The same concepts that apply to individual drawings can also be used in actions - the differences between separate poses. Some differences are subtle, others are more dramatic. You need a variety of differences between successive poses in order to give focus and pacing to the different ideas you want to convey through the characters.BTW, look how little space in the head that the face actually
Using SPACE in your drawings to focus their meaning
BTW, all these theories and techniques are merely toolsNOT ends in themselvesyou don't just randomly put abstract spaces around things just for funYou use them to make your expressions and poses more understandablein other words - you think of the pose, expression or story point you want to make and you frame the important parts of the drawing's intent by putting space around it.and you still use
CONTRASTS for good design
Learning control of contrasts will make your drawings more alive, interesting and appealing.There are many kinds of contrasts, not just contrasts of size.more detailed info to come...
Inking: Eyes and Eyebrows Construction
Figure out the form and position in space of the cranium first - you want the eyes to conform to the position of the skull.-also make the pupils look like they are sitting on the form of the eyes, not going in a different direction****DON'T POKE THE EYEBROWS AND WRINKLES TOO FAR OUTSIDE THE HEAD OUTLINE**** - you don't want to make the head silhouette too complicated
Inking: Face/Head Thick and Thin Hierarchy
See also HOW EYEBROWS WORK:Inking: Hierarchy of Head Outline and Details | CansKickstarterHey if you think you are getting anything out of these instructional posts, show some love:
Ethan Inks One
Ethan did a swell job on Ernie here. I added my little nitpick notes. What Ethan did best was make all the lines come together to make a living character. It all holds together. Sometimes inkers will think of each line in terns of itself and then you end up looking at a collection of lines instead of a living breathing cartoon character. Ethan FEELS the life of Ernie and that's the ultimate goal.
Inking Tips: Gravity/ Put a HEAVY line UNDER forms
I imported Jim's pencil drawing into Toonboom to start inking it.I like characters to have a feeling of weight. One way to do it is to drawslightly heavier lines under each form - especially the bottom of the feet.But also under the torso...under the chin and jaw etc.Next: inking forms instead of lines
Inking Tips: UNDERSTAND the drawing before you ink it
Here's a swell pencil drawing of Ernie by Jim Smith. Jim is very good at suggesting form even with rough sketches. If the drawings aren't carefully cleaned up or inked, they can easily flatten out and lose their impact. So it's important to analyze a drawing before you start inking. The first thing is to note how the biggest forms are constructed and how they relate to each other in dimension
Any Toonboom Inkers Familiar with my style?
Hi folksI'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 if you are interested.Here are some inking tips:http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/inking-advanced-pt-1-logical-line.htmlI had a good post on how to ink faces - using inks by the amazing Brian Romero, but the
Where Steve Jobs Got The Idea For a Phone That Does Everything But Be a Phone
This must be it. He stole it from Yogi Bear!This is a radio that dispenses Bumwad. It's just like a phone that you watch TV on. Or a toaster that you shave with.Here's Yogi about to take a big ol' brown bear dump while listening to his favorite tunes:MUSIC TO DUMP TOYou get better reception on your dumping radio if you use pink wad.It might have also been where the idea for drop-down menus came
What is it about Terrytoons?
The cartoons were low budget for the time and hastily done, yet I still have an extreme fondness for them. There are many cartoons from the same that had obviously higher production values, but not all of them had such quirky lovable characters.
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