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| Image courtesy of www.heart.co.uk |
To practice or not to practice, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to focus solely on completing the animated film or to take time from the film to improve my drawing skills.
This was my dilemma, feeling that the drawing practice I was doing wasn’t producing results, wasn’t moving me forward. I decided to stop it completely and devote all of my free time to just animating.
BUT now I’m rethinking that strategy. Optimally, I should be practicing drawing every day. The question I’m constantly plagued with is WHAT to practice.
To answer that question, I had to ask another, “In what way do I want to draw?”
The answer is: classic Warner Brothers cartoons.
Classic Warner Bros. cartoons are the reason why I decided to become an animator at age seven. Bugs Bunny et. al. are the epitome of funny animated cartoon characters.
I want to draw like THAT!
In order to draw like those guys, I need to study what they did. I dabbled a little in this in the past by following the John K. curriculum which includes copying model sheets. But copying model sheets became boring. And since John K. said that the best model sheets are based on poses from the actual animation, I decided to draw from the actual animation.
I’m starting with a Private Snafu short and focusing on the gesture and the expressions, areas in which I need to improve. Now I look forward to practicing instead of dreading it. I appreciate that not all practice is supposed to be fun (studying anatomy can often be tedious) but until my skills improve, I need to keep it fun for motivation purposes.
But am I fairly evaluating myself by insisting that my skills have NOT improved? Maybe I am getting better! More on that tomorrow.