The Struggle Continues

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Here are a few more Ed Edd n Eddy master copies I did today.  I know last post I said I'd post about some of the things I've learned, and I will; I just have to find the time to illustrate and explain the concepts.

Reference images:


Copies:


You can actually see some of the under-drawing now, yay!

Funny enough, I had to redraw the bottom pose 3-4 times because I kept over-exaggerating (even this version ended up over-stretched!).  I have a tendency to make Double-D longer/taller than he actually is, so that didn't help.  I really should have considered studying the characters and their proportions before starting the master copies, haha.  Ah, well.

I'm slowly picking things up, but I've still got a while to go before I'll be able to whip these out without a reference.  Perseverance!

"Ed, Edd n Eddy" Kicks My Butt

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Over the past couple of months, I've been getting reacquainted with a show that - for some unknown reason - I stopped watching YEARS ago: Ed, Edd n Eddy. I gotta be honest, I have no idea why I stopped watching it, because it is an excellent show. It has all the sorts of things I love to see in animation... like... you know... the characters actually being ANIMATED! None of that poopy stuff you see so much of today that looks like paper dolls being moved around, no sir!

Anyway, I've been trying to make it a regular habit of doing "master copies" from screen captures of old cartoons, to try to learn the ways of an awesome animator/cartoonist. I usually copy old Warner Bros cartoons, but decided I'd try something a bit more challenging this time.

Now, I'm definitely not saying that EEnE is superior to old WB, but I've found that its style is MUCH more difficult to replicate.  The heads in EEnE don't always follow the basic sphere and pear volumes that dominate much of WB's character design - not in a way obvious to me, anyhow. So, it's a bit of a challenge, trying to figure out what makes the style tick, and what the logic is behind the drawings.

By and large, EEnE seems to be pure gesture, which I dig, though sometimes it means the volume drops out of the drawings (not so cool).

My selection of reference images comes from "Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show."





Annnnd... Here are the master copies I did.



They're far from perfect copies; I've noticed that Edd's hands aren't pushed back enough in the last picture, and I completely goofed up the third image, for example.  But to be honest, I toned down things a lot less than I thought I was going to, so... yay?

The real struggle here was to avoid my subconsciousness' desire to just start copying the lines rather than deconstruct the foundations of the drawings.  I started each one trying to figure out the under-drawing for the character(s), then putting it down before starting on final lines.  Unfortunately, my scanner tends to eat lighter lines, so you can't really see my roughs here (note to self: adjust Levels on scanner) - but I swear I had under-drawings for all of these, haha.  I still haven't quite figured out a system/technique for the... rawness of EEnE, but I'll get there eventually.  In the meantime, I'm learning some cartooning-related things that I've somehow missed up until now.  I'll share some of those things in my next post.

'Til then, ciao!