Nicolaides—Schedule 4 complete

Another Nicolaides schedule done and another's been started.

I did another calculation and determined that—if I continue to complete one schedule per week—I will complete this in October. Originally, I didn't think I'd be done until December so you can imagine how excited I was to learn this!

Another significant decision—I'm finding that systematically studying drawing is already helping with my observation and recording skills. But I'm getting a little too dependent on the studies. In other words, I've developed a slight fear of leaving the studying behind temporarily so I can apply it to my film.

But that was the point of studying in the first place, to make my next film look significantly better than my last.

So I set a deadline. I'm currently studying the head and figure from the Famous Artists Course (not sure if it's the Illustration or Commercial Art course) and from the Famous Artists Cartoon Course. Once I'm done with those chapters, I'm back on "Toys." THAT deadline is soon, Sunday, July 18.

And here's the best part! I recently did some brainstorming for the Toys storyboard and found myself drawing the figure and heads better than I've ever drawn them before! It's amazing how little drafting knowledge I had. What made me think I could fake it?!

Onward!

Notes about Nicolaides

I'm continuing to work my way through the Nicolaides curriculum. I thought that once I'd gotten through the boring blind contours, things would pick up. Then I got to the modelled exercise!

Essentially, I like the exercise and I believe it has a benefit. But maybe it's one of those things that requires a live model because working from photos doesn't quite work. The predecessor to modelled was the weight exercises; modelled is weight with contours indicated. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work as described.

But I'm not giving up on it. I simply treat the modelled exercises like the weight exercises and leave it at that. I think it's ultimately important to have the experience and to think a certain way while drawing as opposed to the final result.

FYI, for the gesture exercises and similar others, I'm using a stack of pictures I pulled from surfing magazines, skateboard magazines, etc. Anytime I saw a picture of a person in a dramatic action pose, I tore it out of the magazine or printed it. Glad I did because they're substituting for live models.

Another resource I have is this book:

This book has become invaluable for the weight/modelled exercises due to the multiple angles of nude models.

There is one exercise I simply cannot do without a model and that's the Descriptive Pose exercise. One is to describe a pose in words, draw it, then have the model take the pose to draw what it actually looks like. I may have fudged this exercise in the past using a posable mannequin but it simply wasn't working this time. In the future, when it's called for (luckily, it's a 15 minute exercise), I'll substitute the Reverse Pose exercise instead. I really like that one: you have to look at a pose then draw its mirror image. I think that's a skill that will be helpful for animation.

I'm glad I finally got around to using all of the resources I've collected over 35 years!

Nicolaides—Schedule 3 complete AND back from vacation

45 hours done; 330 hours to go!

I scheduled not working on Nicolaides during my vacation into my original deadline for completing this curriculum. But in order to stay on schedule, I did do a few hours of Schedule 3 in order to complete it so I can start Schedule 4 tomorrow.

I will have to read further about the "modelled drawing" exercise. I think I get it but when he talks about drawing the vertical and horizontal contours, I get a little lost. It looks like some form of the modelled drawing is done for several schedules so I should try to better understand it now.

I start the below tomorrow:

Nicolaides—Schedule 2 complete

A fruitful furlough day & Memorial Day weekend. I managed to complete 6 1/2 hours of Nicolaides's curriculum both yesterday and today. That means:

I'm done with Schedule 2! And that means…NO MORE BLIND CONTOURS!!!!

Woo hoo! Admittedly, I'll still continue to do ten minute blind contours daily. But as I said before, ten minutes isn't nearly as painful as ONE HOUR! Sheesh!

So not only am I determined to complete this curriculum by Dec. 31, 2010, but I was determined to get past that particular exercise. And if I can survive that, the rest will be easy.

Here's the next schedule:

As you see, the gesture exercises continue as they will, in some form, for the entire curriculum. Luckily I've come to enjoy those exercises and to see their benefit. For example, I did so many gesture drawings yesterday that last night I couldn't stop dreaming about all of the gestures I wanted to do for my film! It took me a couple of hours to fall asleep because all of the drawing I'm doing fueled all kinds of new ideas for my next film. That ALONE is worth all of the work I've put in!

I also figured out today that in order to complete this by Dec. 31, I should finish one schedule per week. That means I'll need to spend two hours per weekday on it while using the weekends (and furlough days) to complete the last of the 15 hours. That's definitely a doable schedule.

On to Schedule 3!

Surviving Nicolaides—suggestion #1

I see why people have either started the Nicolaides curriculum and stopped it soon after or haven't gotten far. The first two schedules of 15 hours are full of a tedious exercise—blind contour drawings. I have read elsewhere, however, that doing regular blind contour drawings is a genuinely helpful exercise in training one's eye-hand coordination. Now that I've completed about ten hours of blind contours, I can offer some suggestions on how to get through them without losing your mind.

First, choose an object with a lot of texture. For example, one of my favorite blind contour subjects is a crumpled paper bag. With all of those lines and folds, neither your eye nor your brain will become bored, at least not too quickly. Other options: a bumpy rock (I use a volcanic rock I found in Colorado), wilted lettuce, bones (I have a real cow's head a full-sized fake human skeleton. I like to use the foot and hand bones in particular), tree bark, your hand. Usually an organic object that has texture works best.

Second, keep in the back of your mind as you're drawing that—despite the seeming uselessness of this exercise—ultimately it will improve your drawing.

Just keep going!

Nicolaides—Schedule 1 complete

I've completed—for possibly the SIXTH TIME!—Schedule 1 of Kimon Nicolaides's "The Natural Way to Draw." One of the reasons that I wanted to get through those 15 hours quickly—and the same with the 15 hours of Schedule 2—is that the one hour blind contours are PAINFUL!

Dayum!!

I was happily doing 10 minute blind contours as a daily exercise. But one whole freakin' hour?!?! It's so bloody painful doing them that I found myself becoming loudly exasperated and shouting…in my apartment BY MYSELF! In other words, doing a one hour blind contour drawing will cause INSANITY!!

Luckily, with Schedule 2, there's only one half hour of cross contours (slightly less boring than a standard contour) and one full hour of the standard contour. Then, starting with Schedule 3, there's no more contour drawings. So that's a huge incentive for me complete this entire schedule this holiday weekend. As of this writing, I've done 1 of the 15 hours so I'm on my way.

And it's soooo much fun updating my little progress charts! Woo hoo!

I'm on the right track?!

I just came across this post at the Animation Illustration Art blog. You can imagine how thrilled I was when the very books listed—considered to be the best to follow when trying to improve one's drawing ability—are the SAME books I am currently studying!

I'm feeling good right now!

Not to mention that I'm in the last two hours of Schedule 1 of the Nicolaides book.

I've learned to love doing gesture drawings but these ONE HOUR blind contours are painful! I'll be glad when I'm past that exercise or at least doing it for that length of time. Ten minutes, OK. One hour, not so OK.

Ultimately, I'm on track to improving my drawing and eventually returning to the production of my ideas.

Art instruction books—1 down!

Completed studying and copying the head section from Andrew Loomis's "Drawing the Head & Hands" (I'm doing something I don't normally do. The link for the Loomis book is for a full download of the book. All of Loomis's other books are also available from that site, just do a search. The rumor is that Loomis's family is uninterested in putting the books back into print, that there's an issue with the 'nudity' of some of his drawings. I don't know if that's true but if it is, it's a shame, his lessons are invaluable. In any case, enjoy the link.) My goal was to complete this by the end of the month so I'm particularly proud of myself for finishing it eight days early.

I thought it best to start with and concentrate on the head. So much of my next film involves the characters's faces and expressions that I wanted to become better at drawing them. Not to mention being able to turn the head properly and have all of the features be where they're supposed to be!

Now I'm on to Burne Hogarth's "Drawing the Human Head" and the head section of George Bridgman's "Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life." I predict getting through Hogarth quickly since I've studied it before. Bridgman…I don't know. I bought the book a decade ago but found his approach took complicated for my taste. But I'll give it another look. At the least, there might be one small nugget of information that could revolutionize how I see and draw.

Looney Indeed!

Warner Bros. has discovered that a generation of kids is unfamiliar with its classic cartoon characters which I agree is a travesty.

But their solution to this problem—explained here—is dopey.

Instead of showing more of the classic 40's and 50's cartoons, they're "modernizing" the characters. Personalities have been changed (Bugs and Daffy are friends who live together in a cul-de-sac?! WTF?! What, are they now a gay, inter-species couple?!) Motivations have been changed. Even the DESIGNS have been changed (see above) because, you know, the designs done in the 40's and 50's sucked (see model sheets below.) NOT! Notice how in the model sheets Bugs's feet do NOT look like blocks of cement.

Now, I know I'm not the greatest draftsman, but I do know about something called PROPORTIONS! And the size of Bugs's feet indicates that Warner Bros. has never heard of the word. And wasn't Bugs taller and thinner than he is here? Cartoon Brew readers comment about this here.

So sad. Children will be introduced to an unimaginative, poorly designed Bugs Bunny.

I weep for the future…

In Honor of Frank Frazetta

I once worked for someone who described one of her employees as having "talented hands." That comment made me chuckle to myself because this individual obviously didn't know (despite being the co-owner of an animation studio specializing in hand-drawn animation) that the ability to draw is a skill and not an inborn talent. Of course, learned skills doesn't mean equal results (I can develop the skill of playing basketball but I will never be as good as Lisa Leslie.) But, personally, I have rarely described people as being "naturally talented."

One of the possible exceptions to the no-natural-talent rule was Frank Frazetta. His formal art training can't possibly explain his incredible work. It's not just his beautiful execution; it's also the incredible imagination on display. No amount of art classes can fully explain the rich visuals on display in Frazetta's work. That's GOT to be some special talent at work!

In a documentary about Frazetta, a colleague explained how Frazetta wanted to draw a rabbit running across a path. He said that Frazetta—unfamiliar with exactly how a rabbit looked—closed his eyes for a minute and then drew an excellent rabbit!

Clearly, Frazetta tapped into something special inside of himself in order to create his art.

Here's my current collection of Frazetta books:

Raiding My Bookshelves

Since elementary school, I have been collecting art instruction books. As mentioned in my eBook "3 Newbie Not-To-Do's: Getting Started with Toon Boom's Storyboard Pro," my father photocopied for me—in its ENTIRETY!—the book "Animating Films Without a Camera." I still have those photocopies today along with a host of other books.

I'm now completely focused on improving my drawing skills. In the past when I've tried to do this, I felt overwhelmed about what I should be doing and how.

I finally got smart and decided to combine the exercises in the Nicolaides book with a thorough examination of ALL of the art instruction books I have. Yep, ALL of them! Because what's the point of having an instruction book if you don't at least give it one solid look. And I spent quite a bit on some of them so I BETTER look at them!

Here's my prized Andrew Loomis collection (I spent many a late night on eBay outbidding folks for some of these):

The Burne Hogarth collection:

The Will Eisner collection:

Some others:

These books and collections I was lucky enough to download before copyright issues banned them from the web:

PLUS I have ten binders full of drawing and animation tips and tricks.

This ambitious plan is currently scheduled to take me into 2013 (!) I look at these books and binders of notes every day and it drives me crazy that they're full of potentially life-altering insights that I simply haven't accessed yet.

No more wondering, I'm ready to start raiding.

Back to Basics

From my favorite DIY graphic novel site, reMIND:

"I don’t believe you can just jump in and start doing this [drawing a graphic novel] from the start. If you don’t have a good understanding of anatomy and perspective and other fundamental skills then you will spend more time focusing on learning these things then you will one getting the job at hand done. So if you're just starting out then take your time to learn your skill."

I knew I was on the right path by putting my projects aside and focusing on improving my drawing skills but it's always nice to have it confirmed by another. What Jason Brubaker describes above is exactly the problem I was encountering while trying to draw a storyboard and a graphic novel. I was spending way more time muddling through each drawing to make it look correct than anything else. It became abundantly clear that I simply lack the skill to draw quickly and correctly.

Drawing well is like playing a sport well, one must practice.

I am confident of two things: that my story ideas are cool and have a lot of potential and that with consistent effort, I can develop above-average drawing skills.

My first step is to return to the exercises outlined in Kimon Nicolaides's "The Natural Way to Draw." I've tried his exercises twice before—the first time I got as far as Schedule 3 and the second time, to Schedule 9, in 2006 & 2007. I read my diaries from back then and discovered that the reason I junked this program the second time was due to rumors I heard at my job. They got me so rattled that I dropped my studies and decided I needed to produce a project ASAP in case things became impossible at my day job!

Now it's THREE YEARS LATER (!) and you know what? If I had stuck with that program back then, I'd be DONE with it by now and drawing better! So by listening to fools, I lost THREE YEARS of improvement time. Nice! (not)

Lesson learned: stop listening to rumors and listen to my gut instead!

Second, I came up with a separate routine to do during the work week. One good thing about having attempted the Nicolaides program in the past is that I know it can become tedious (but aren't all exercises tedious?) So if I'm up at 4am, I will NOT want to do a blind contour for 30 minutes! In other words, I can better handle the Nicolaides program on the weekend and will do a different but related program during the week, one that I feel will develop my skills while also being more fun and keeping me interested.

My intention is to do the entire 375 hours of the program. Here's one person who has tried this, too, but I'm not sure if the entire program was completed.

Off to draw...

Bullish on Boxes

In my seemingly neverending attempts to lift my drawing from the realm of poor to better-than-average, I have collected a myriad of approaches and techniques from an array of talented people (Glenn Vilppu, Walt Stanchfield, Andrew Loomis, Burne Hogarth, Will Eisner, John K., etc.)

One particular approach that I see has had an immediate improvement on my drawing is the idea of picturing forms as boxes. When forms are "boxed out", it clearly establishes the angle and planes of the form. This is especially helpful for complicated angles.

So instead of my usual confusion when sketching out a pose, by using boxes, there's less guesswork and I more quickly arrive at the desired position.

Here's how Glenn Vilppu describes it.

Frank Frazetta's Kids Actin' Crazy

When I first saw the headline to this article, I thought the amazing Frank Frazetta had passed away and that I hadn't heard any reports about it! Turns out that Frank is—thankfully—still with us (although his wife passed away last year, the woman who possibly inspired those curvaceous women in his drawings). But his four children aren't waiting until dad dies before they start fighting over how to handle his incredible body of work.

I have to admit, I got a chuckle from picturing Frank, Jr. trying to break into the Frazetta museum…with a backhoe! LOL!

Storyboard Newbie eBook Available!

I made my first eBook!

I thought others new to Storyboard Pro—especially amateurs or wanna-be professionals not employed by a studio—could learn something from my mistakes.

It's available in the right column. Just click on the image. Enjoy!

Project Weekend—FAIL!!!

The passion's gone. The enthusiasm's  gone. What's going ON?!?! I had a 3-day weekend planned to immerse myself in my work and…nothing.

Spending the rest of tonight figuring out how to get back that crazy, sick singular focus I had last Sept–Dec.

Otherwise, Toys vs. Boy will NEVER get done!

FIRST DECISION: drop working on Chalk Outline Man. There's simply not enough time or energy to work on two large projects PLUS do my paying job.

Something HAD to go, so it's that…for now.

Film Post––Animatic version 6

If there was a reason behind how I was numbering my animatics, I don't freakin' remember it! Argh!

Moving on…completed some more rough, updated storyboard panels. The more I use this program, the more I appreciated it over using the more complex After Effects. I've got a project weekend coming up so I should have a significantly more updated animatic by Sunday night. Here's the latest:

Tuesday Film Post--Animatic version 5B

I realized a few days ago that the opening scene wasn't working from a blocking point of view. In other words, in order for Honey to poke at the volume control on the radio on the bathroom counter, her arm would be in an awkward position. The movement required to pull that off just wasn't fitting in the space. But I can't let go of the whole increasing-the-volume moment because it's an important element to the story.

So I junked the bathroom counter solution and came up with a better one. I mean, that is the crux of storytelling, solving visual problems. Now, the radio's in the shower and Honey's adjusting the volume while taking a shower, singing into her loofah! I love it!

Here's the new opening panels, complete with shower sound effect and temporary music:

Building a Better Skyline

I should've known that declaring something "final" for me would be premature. I know how I am—if I have to convince myself that a drawing is good enough, then deep down inside, I don't think it's good enough. And then I'm going to keep obsessing about it until it is good enough.

Case in point, my graphic novel skyline. This drawing is important because it's a spread (a letter-size page folded horizontally) and it's the first panel the reader sees (the first image the reader sees is, of course, the cover, but I don't want to work on that until the project's completed.) I want this image to have some delicious detail. I recently read part of Scott McCloud's Making Comics where he discussed details in backgrounds. He said that although it took him one week to draw one spread, the time was worth it because so few artists make that kind of effort.

I agree with this idea in general. So many people are looking to "get over" or do the bare minimum required. Now that this country has entered a new post-heyday era, achieving anything of worth is going to require even more effort than it did between 1950 and 2000. We have to accept that we will have to pay more in order to get the same…or less.

To compete, that means giving more to stand out from those who don't. To me, that means adding more details to my graphic novels and making the art as good as I can make it. I'm confident this approach will work—the reality is that several graphic novels with mediocre art have been optioned for and made into live-action feature films. If I put in more effort, maybe I'll get optioned, too!

Below are different versions of the skyline I've done lately. I'm still trying to find the best method for showing gradated tones. I've tried Photoshop gradations, watercolor pencils and graphite pencil. Maybe Manga Studio has some tones that will work but not look generic? Any suggestions?

Photoshop gradients

All black

Prismacolor cool gray markers

Pencil

Watercolor pencil

"Lucius" Turnarounds

Drawing the dude was significantly easier than the sistah. Maybe because there's fewer details? He's got no hair for a reason!

Special thanks to LL Cool J for supplying his atypical head shape; Jamie Foxx for the eye shape; and Omar Epps for the lips. :)