Construction. Line of Action (essence of pose/emotion). Clear silhouette. Flow (details follow LOA).

Design balance/contrasts. Organic shapes. Negative shapes. Hierarchy. Perspective. Foreshortening.

These are the best resources (last updated 12/24/22) to learn these principles for...

DRAWING CHARACTERS

• Tom & Jerry

= early 40s: less solid construction BUT more organic shapes, flow, & design balance/constrasts

=mid-late 40s: excels at solid construction, silhouettes, perspective & clearer LOAs

=50s: best construction for beginners + best silhouettes, LOAs & negative shapes in the series

=40s comics by Harvey Eisenberg: best perspective & foreshortening. Still great at construction & fundamentals.

• Irv Spence (likely the only animator in history to nail every one of these principles down at once) (most apparent in his model sheets)
• Early 1940s Bob Clampett / early-mid 1940s Tex Avery & Chuck Jones
• Harvey Kurtzman

=is best at clear staging, LOAs, flow, negative shapes & hierarchy

• Late 30s-early 40s Disney shorts/movies

=by this point all of the essential drawing principles have been discovered & refined

=best resource to learn construction & basic perspective

As a 2-D animator, Animation can only achieve so much with a poorly-drawn character. That's why I'm not mentioning animation principles. This will come much easier if we 1st put our focus on copying individual frames. After a few months, if we're ready, we can finally study BOTH the drawing & animation principles (an example is shown here).

But don't be fooled by the slapstick & goofy nature of these cartoons!! That's not our focus. We're not studying the acting. Nor the gags. It's about the skills the average viewer doesn't see: SOLID DRAWING PRINCIPLES! This will not only benefit any art style today, but you'll quickly realize how hard it is to replicate these drawings. That's because ALL of the things listed on the very top are, normally, being used simultaneously. The late 30s-40s is a period in animation where all, or most, of the principles were used in harmony, hence the name "Golden Age of Animation".

Be careful studying cartoons outside of everything I've listed. Especially modern cartoons/anime with its focus on stylistic choices. We need material that's mostly bland AND well-drafted. Studying, say, Lupin the 3rd Part 3 is good IF you know what principles/theories you're analyzing. Just understand that, because of the many cheats made to enhance its style, it takes more brain power to ignore this & see how the character's constructed 1st. What we want is to purposefully learn COMPLEX skills from SIMPLE characters.

So how do we study, say, the drawing on the left?

1) Line of Action

• The 1st thing you should draw
• Captures the weight & emotion of the character
• Avoid drawing a FAKE LOA: a perfect c curve=no direction because both ends are now equally the same. C & S curves, with one end leading the pose, are ideal.
• Draw with your shoulder: meaning no leaning your palm/wrist on the paper! Move your entire arm.

2) Gesture

• The edges of the form

=like the LOA, gestures capture the essence of the pose

• Unless the pose is being led by, for example, a hand throwing a punch, draw the torso 1st!
• The apex(es) of each gesture=where the curve(s) is(are) at its(their) most extreme(s)

=the apex is the weight of the body being pulled by a force and/or gravity

• Also try to use your shoulder!

3) Construction

• You're drawing 3-dimensional shapes, not circles or squares
• Draw lightly on your canvas, or else, you can't draw over it!! I forget this all the time.
• The only place that absolutely needs a vertical & horizontal center line is the head
• Be extra wary of how everything is angled. It's in our nature to even out those details, so fight that urge
• If you can find a way to combine steps 2 & 3, do it! For example, you make the gesture stroke, then immediately draw the form. After the torso & head are finished you add the center lines. Plenty of ways to approach this.

4) Detail

• Don't think of lines, but rather, sculpting the form from its edges
• Do not look directly at the tip of your pencil! Instead, look at the form/LOA you're drawing over. This will give you more confident/functional results.

=if this is too hard, regularly look back to the form/LOA so your details follow its hierarchy

• Drawing on paper is better for studying as there's more surface texture, which means, more room to make mistakes & produce subtler linework. Though digital can still work! I'm probably using the wrong brushes.
• It doesn't have to be a final finish like mine. It can be rough as long as the details are added & are readable.
• Don't erase your construction/gestures/LOA, this is to get us in the habit of visualizing the character's layers of principles.

We're not redrawing to recycle poses, it's to apply these principles to our OWN drawings. In doing so we have to be honest with what we got wrong. I see plenty of mistakes in my picture, though that just excites me to try again & again!

You'll SAVE time using these skillsets, not having to worry about drawing accidentally, meaning your work will look more confident & handsome!

Even if I do accurately copy a drawing's principles & get all the proportions/angles right: am I actually going to apply what I learned to my art? How do I ensure this information sticks with me? You can do 1 of 3 things:

1. Create a NEW pose with the SAME character (ideal)
2. Create the SAME pose with a NEW character (has to be a simple BLAND design: Porky, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Woody Woodpecker, etc.)
3. Create the SAME pose with YOUR character (has to be simple, otherwise you're slowing your learning curve)

Let's stick with #1!

I'm picturing a frustrated pose of her looking over at someone.

Eek! Bad attempt, oh well! I'm really happy today, so I'll try again...

*For the step below I exaggerated the proportions of the head/torso more than I'm comfortable with! I evened out her head size in the last attempt, so I learned from that mistake & tried again.

*Red in this step above represents the gestures/construction. Blue is the basic outline for the facial features/clothing. I did the red 1st because those are the BIGGER details.

Do you see? Some of what I learned from the original drawing paid off! I'm tellin' you, this is the power of old cartoons.

Don't believe we can apply these same principles to something like anime? Let's use Haruko in the same pose as the drawing from earlier...

*as I mentioned about mixing 2 steps into 1, I combined gesture & construction into 1 stage. Then for the step below (in blue), I had to draw more outlines than I'm used to, so I got worried that I accidentally skipped ahead to "details". It's because I'm used to constructing simple characters!

Stiff as a board! Very boring unsure-of-itself stuff. BUT, when learning new skills, we have to be conservative at 1st. You guys can outdraw me in a heartbeat for characters like this, but still, studying cartoons 1st made it easier for me to approach Haruko. & for most of you who understand anatomy, copying these cartoons will only strengthen your draftsmanship!

I put together an album FULL of curated clips/pictures from the resources listed at the top! I hope to continue adding to it over time. But please, if any questions you have, reach out to me. I love talking about cartoons: especially how to dissect them (college will slow my response time, but know I'm here for ya!). We have so many beautiful technical innovations today that I firmly believe, one day, we can do better than 40s cartoons. Or Fooly Cooly. But we have to make plenty of terrible drawings 1st. Remember: we're amateur scientists constantly conducting experiments & questioning our results!

Now stop jabbering, we got to make these old-timers jealous!

Help:

• Matt Mattesi's FORCE book
• John K Stuff (it's hard to look past the obvious, but please, there are so many great artists discussed & information to take from. That's partly why I'm teaching this stuff so it doesn't have to be the ONLY place talking about it anymore)