Schoolism.com: The Importance Of Sketchbooks

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For eight weeks now I’ve been posting my assignments from a character design class I’m taking at schoolism.com (taught by Stephen Silver). Only one more week to go!

This week’s assignement was another two-parter. For Part 1 we had to go to a busy public place and fill a page with observational sketches. The Mall of America is near my house, so I went there to sketch the above page. Part 2 (which I’ll post tomorrow) was about memory sketching.

I can’t over-emphasize the importance of keeping a daily sketchbook. The only way to get better at drawing is to draw. As Stephen likes to say, “A page a day keeps the competition away”.

A sketchbook isn’t for polished drawings. Rather, it’s a private place where you can stay loose, experiment, stretch yourself, and make mistakes. Lots of them! (Mistakes are the best teachers). If you want to keep growing as an artist, the worst thing you can do is fill your sketchbook with things you already know how to draw.

Going to a busy place to draw real live people is something you should do regularly. (Stephen fills a page every day over his lunch hour). Most people don’t sit still for very long, so it forces you to stay loose, think fast and make bold decisions, which over time will increase your confidence. Don’t sweat the details; focus on the essence of a pose (which can usually be captured in just a few lines). Try to capture the overall physical attitude of the person, which is the foundation that breathes life into a drawing. You can always go back and flesh out the details later.

In his lecture, Stephen talked about what a character designer should focus on as he sketches the people around him (i.e. balance, gesture, line of action, negative space, rhythm, attitude, etc.) He also talked about not just seeing, but studying what you draw. Observe the different ways people walk, talk, and gesture. Notice body types, hairstyles, and clothing choices. Study how fabric clings and hangs around the body, how people position their legs when they sit, how they lean when they carry things, how their posture changes with their attitude (i.e. excited, bored, annoyed, etc.) These are the things that give your drawings personality and character.

Stephen also talked about “frankensteining”, that is, assembling parts of several people into one character. You might start to draw a man reading the paper, but as soon as you rough in his body pose he gets up to leave. Don’t abandon your drawing. Add the profile from another person, maybe the hair from a third person, etc. Frankensteining keeps you from getting frustrted when your models keep moving (or leaving) in mid-drawing, and you might be pleasantly surprised at the new character you’ve created.

The point is that you keep drawing, keep experimenting, keep learning.

Now get out there and draw!

John K on Character Design

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“John K” (short for Kricfalusi) is the creator of Ren and Stimpy, and a prolific blogger. I’m not a big fan of Ren and Stimpy, and John’s abstract drawing style (shown above) doesn’t really appeal to me. But his blog is terrific! His posts about art, animation, and cartooning are very thoughtful and filled with great images and clips that support his point of view. He has a lot of opinions and is not afraid to ruffle a few feathers. I don’t always agree with him, but he always makes me think. I recently added John’s link to my list of Art Blogs over to the right. (The abundance of images makes his blog slow to load, so be patient.)

Last month John did a great little post about what (in his view) makes for good character design. Well worth reading:

Character Design Primer

I decided to do a search of the rest of his blog looking for other posts about character design. After typing in the keywords, here’s some of the results that came back:

Ed Benedict Article From Animation Blast

Stock Disney Charactes – The Bland Lead

What Makes a Character a Character? (Part 1)

Stock Disney Characters – The Gay Arabic Villain

When Generic Is A Good Thing

Constructing Bugs Bunny

Ramjet Construction

(EDIT: Here’s more John K on Character Design.)