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Tuesday, June 28th, 2016

Illustration: Arthur Rackham’s Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Arthur Rackham is probably the single most influential children’s book illustrator. His delicate watercolors define the image of fairy tales in many people’s minds.

If you aren’t familiar with his work, see Bud Plant’s great capsule biography.

These scans are from a rare first edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales from 1909. This beautiful book is jam packed with fabulous color plates and ink sketches.

Rackham’s style merges an organic line and earthy color palette with fantastic imagery. He often slipped faces into trees and clouds, adding an extra layer of wonder to his images. His pastoral subjects often seem to be nostalgic for an earlier time, perfect for bringing fairy tales to life.

Arthur Rackham Walt Disney admired Rackham’s watercolor and pen & ink style, and instructed Gustaf Tenggren to work with Claude Coates and Sam Armstrong to adapt it for use in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In animation backgrounds however, the sinewy Rackham line was overly busy, distracting from the characters; so Tenggren evolved towards the more dimensional painting style in Pinocchio, which set the standard for Disney cartoons throughout the 1940s.

At Animation Resources one of our projects is to document the images that acted as inspiration to the artists who created the first animated features. No artist fits that bill better than Arthur Rackham. We’re very fortunate to be able to bring the illustrations from this great book to you. I hope you enjoy them.

If you like what you see, please share it with your friends by linking to this page from your blog or webpage.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of a series of articles comprising an online exhibit spotlighting Illustration.

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Friday, June 17th, 2016

Animation Resources Sponsor A Student Program

Nicholas John Pozega has donated two one year student memberships to Animation Resources. If you are a full time student and would like to apply to be awarded the membership, post one of your best drawings in Animation Creative League along with the comment, “I want to be a member of Animation Resources”. We will select the two winners in about a week.

Animation Creative League
https://www.facebook.com/groups/creativeleague/

If you would like to sponsor a student, just donate $50 using the PayPal link at the top of the right hand column at www.animationresources.org and let us know that you would like to sponsor a student.

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Thursday, June 2nd, 2016

DESIGN: Specific Design for Animation Characters

Today, I would like to introduce you to JoJo Baptista, Animation Resources’ Director of Education. Over the next year, JoJo will be assembling articles for this website as well as hands on online courses in drawing and design for the membership of Animation Resources. -Stephen Worth

Jim Smith Applies Specific Expressions
By JoJo Baptista

In these sketches Jim Smith demonstrated a perfect example of viewing observation from reality, in this case the acting of Robert Ryan, and he applied it to a generic cartoon dog. In order to gain an understanding of how the design of the character worked, Jim did studies of a dog character from a Dan Gordon comic.

He then researched Robert Ryan’s performance in the 1951 film, “The Racket”, and sketched several facial studies.

He applied his knowledge of the dog design, then overlaid specific expressions based on his Ryan studies. These expressions breathed new life into the character, giving his acting entirely new levels of distinctiveness.

Take a look at how the features which make up Robert Ryan’s face match the dog’s exactly (ie. The jaw, cheeks, eyebrows, etc). He was able to create new eye and mouth shapes based on his findings. Beautiful execution! This is an incredibly sophisticated process, which takes a complete understanding of not only cartoon construction but a mastery of the human figure as well. Jim’s knowledge of both is what allows him to execute such a complex amalgam of unique cartooning.

A specific expression isn’t simply eyebrows up or down to convey an emotion on a characters face. It isn’t just a generic happy or sad character. In fact, based on these drawings one can make the observation that it uses the entirety of the face, even when shapes are at rest, to put forth an expression that is totally unique and functions within the context of a scene.

The drawing on the bottom left looks as though it’s a combination of a cartoon shape and anatomical elements.

To those studying these drawings: Don’t just redraw these poses! The lesson to take away from this article is how to get to the point of an expression. Experience drawing both cartoon characters and real human beings is important. Once you have an understanding of how a fundamental principle works, apply it to another. Try taking an existing actor with wild expressions and apply them to a generic classic cartoon character (ie. Jerry Mouse, Tom Cat, Elmer Fudd, etc.). You’ll learn a lot about acting and design this way, especially what a character needs in order to emote.