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Thursday, June 9th, 2022

Instruction: Willard Mullin on Animals

FA Binders A couple of months ago, we posted a section of the Famous Artists Illustration Course… Chad’s Design For Television. Today, we are bringing you another Famous Artists article, this time from the Cartooning Course… Willard Mullin on Animals.

Willard Mullin was a type of cartoonist that doesn’t exist any more… a newspaper sports page cartoonist. In the days before high speed film and well lit night games, newspapers relied on cartoonists to illustrate the sports stories that photographers were unable to shoot. They did this by caricaturing the players and utilizing team mascots to represent who was on top and who was in the doghouse.

Mullin was not only the greatest sports cartoonist of his day, he was also one of the most talented artists ever to work in newspaper comics. His drawings are dynamic and full of energy and life. His lines flow beautifully, while still defining the solid forms that underly his drawings. When it came to drawing animals, he was unmatched. I hope you find this useful in your own work.

These pages provide just a small sample of Mullin’s work. If you can, find a copy of his book, "A Hand In Sports". It’s packed with wonderful sketches by this underappreciated cartoonist.

The Famous Artists school is still in operation. Visit their website at www.famous-artists-school.com.

As an added treat, here is an early Mullin piece celebrating the victory of the horse, Omaha in the 1935 Kentucky Derby. Archive supporter, Ted Watts found this treasure in a thrift store and generously allowed us to scan it for the archive. Amazing stuff!

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of an online series of articles dealing with Instruction.

This posting is part of the online Encyclopedia of Cartooning under the subject heading, Editorial Cartoons.

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Wednesday, June 8th, 2022

Instruction: Clair Weeks’ Animal Studies

Today, I’m proud to present more amazing treasures from the Clair Weeks collection. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Weeks was born the son of a missionary in India. At DIsney, he was often teased about his resemblence to a village parson or pilgrim. (See caricature to the right.)

Around 1940, Disney Studios was at its peak. Several animated feature films were in production at once, and the staff numbered at an all time high. Disney instituted a comprehensive training program for the artists at his studio, which included life drawing, animal studies and action analysis classes under the direction of Don Graham. Today, we scanned animal drawings by Clair Weeks from these classes.

Animation Resources supporter, Mike Fontanelli was in last night when I was scanning these beautiful sketches, and he expressed his admiration for Weeks’ skill. It’s difficult to draw animals and capture any kind of natural pose because they are always moving. Weeks not only exhibited mastery of construction and posing, but also the ability to embed the spark of life that makes a drawing come alive. His technique allowed for both analytically realistic depiction and cartoony stylized caricature.

Aspiring cartoonists and animators should look over these drawings carefully and make a trip to the zoo to study the animals themselves the way the artists did at Disney in 1940.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

This posting is part of an online series of articles dealing with Instruction.

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Monday, April 9th, 2018

FREE Online Animation Drawing Course!

FREE Online Animation Drawing Course!

Animation Resources is pleased to announce a FREE online drawing course teaching the fundamental principles of drawing for animation. The course is led by Animation Resources’ Director of Education, JoJo Baptista and it’s based on Preston Blair’s classic book, “Advanced Animation”. Over the next year or so, we’ll be working over the internet with a group of students who want to sharpen their skills and learn to draw more solidly. The course will include online lessons followed by video critique with draw-overs of students’ submitted work. The first lesson is online now- plus you can download a PDF of the entire rare first edition of the Preston Blair book!

Preston Blair’s Advanced Animation Lesson 00
https://animationresources.org/instruction-preston-blairs-advanced-animation/

If you would like to participate, follow our lessons as they are posted and send in your work for critique. As the group of students following this online course progresses, we’ll be introducing more advanced lessons. If you are a student studying animation in school, this is the perfect self-study program to supplement your formal education. If you are a professional animator, it never hurts to brush up on the fundamentals. It can shake off the cobwebs and break you of bad habits. You don’t even have to be an animator to benefit from this… illustrators and cartoonists will get a lot out of these lessons as well.

There is no charge for participating in this course, but we ask that students who benefit from this valuable information consider becoming members of Animation Resources. From time to time, we will be referring to materials on the Members Only download page, so to get the most out of this course, you should join our organization. Support the people that are helping you grow as an artist.

JOIN NOW!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/