Animation Source Forums

You know, EVERY artists or animator, regardless of how exaggerated and weird style they present - need to learn anatomy very well. You can't experiment with stylizing real anatomy when you don't know it.
Take Home On The Range for example. Those animals are highly exxagerate. But does that look okay? Sure. Animation is done well and despite the stylization - characters don't have many mistakes.

It's also a perfect example how you can make 3 completely different body design out of one species:


Now let's take our beloved Balto 2:

something's definitely not right and it's not because of stylization. Characters can't "keep" their defined shape. One moment thay look fairly good while in next scene they look like mutated cats. It's obvious that animators don't know animal anatomy very well and din't get enough of their character studies.

My biggest question is, Do have to draw the bones of the Animal First when learning Anatomy?

Do you mean drawing skeletons? No, not necessarily; you just need to be aware of what they look like and where the joints are. When it comes to learning artistic anatomy, you don't always have to draw the individual skeletal or muscular systems, you just have to understand them and how they work: how they effect the shape, movements, etc. Best thing to do is life drawing, where you look at the live animal and try to draw what you see. Second best thing is doing the same, but with photographs rather than live animals.

It just takes practice.

Since My other Topics Got Lost, I decided to Post Bio's Of my Characters here As well.

Ah, that's a relief.So basically, I study Real Animals. I'm going to a Zoo. Lol Alright. I'll give it a shot.
Name: Mac
Name meaning: Son of ; Greatest
Gender : Male
( Breed ) Species : White Bengal Tiger
Age : Teen to Young Adult
Fur Color(s) : Snow White with Jet Black stripes
Eye Color : Icey Blue
Mate : Trixie
Crush : Trixie
Crusher : Trixie , Lola , and Chloe
Friends : Diego and Alex
Enemies: Wolfine , Sarafina , The Saver ( Also known as Sheldon )
Story Status: antagonist ( Villain )
Minions: The Evil Kimberly , Ruthy , And Samantha
Parents : Leo X Hannah
Sibling (s) : Chance ( Brother )
Body : Very Tall , Buff , But is Of an Average weight.
Likes : Being Bossy , Teasing Wolfine , Being Filthy Rich , and Hanging Out with the cool kids
Dislikes : Losing , Wolfine , And Lame People. Hates it When People Mess up His Plans.
Personailty: Bossy , Arrogant , Brave , but at times can be a coward. He Is only Nice to Animals of His Type. Mac Is Bossy by Nature , and loves to boss his friends around. He Acts like he is a stuck up Rich Tiger Who Thinks He is Better then Everyone else. He Also can be very Greedy at times. He Also Can be Selfish as well , and does not have a Nice bone in his body.

Bio : Mac was Born in a line of Rich Tigers. His Mother and Father Loved him And His Brother , Chance very Dearly. However , As Mac And Chance Got Older , Their Parents Spoiled them a little too much. As A result , both Brothers became Really Bratty towards their Parents so they Could get anything They wanted. Both Parents were foolish , and Didn't want their babies to be Unhappy. Therefore , it Led Mac and Chance down a very Greedy road. As A Teen , Mac Had The Same Spoiled life he had as A kid , And got very furious at his Brother for even bothering to change his ways. Ever since then he had a Grudge against His Brother. He first Met Wolfine in high school , And The first time He saw Him , He decided to Act Better then him , and Pick on wolfine for Not Being The Up class rich type. Wolfine Tried To fend Him off once , but even though He was A prince , He was a little bit Weaker then Mac. Once Mac found out that Wolfine was a prince , he Got Jealous. Mac also was Very attractive as a teen. When he was young , He was not very attractive / Up class. Sadly , he only Had 3 Girls Who liked him , not that he was bothered because Honestly , He was not that into Girls at that age. When Sarafina Moved to the School , He kinda Had A Small Crush on her , but Only That. Months Later , He started to see Wolfine and Sarafina Like each other. He found out that she was a Princess , And That if he married her , He could Take all of her money , and Divorce her , It was easy as that. Mac Succeeded At getting Sarafina , but Didn't Know the correct way to fall in love with a Girl , He acted Like his normal Selfish self. Soon Wolfine Caught onto it , And He warned Sarafina , But Sarafina Already Had suspected of him not Being True ,and She Broke Up with Him. Mac was Outraged and was determined to get Sarafina Back if That was the last thing He would do. Mac Hanged out With his friends , Diego and Alex , Also tough Guys like him. He Ordered Them to Kill Wolfine , but there plan Backfired. Wolfine Was not Killed. Later on , He Hires The Evil Kimberly to Kill Wolfine And Even Sarafina ! He only wanted the money Anyway , and If They had a Family together , to kill the little ones too. The Evil Kimberly Thought It was Kinda Harsh at First , but then He was forced By Mac , to Try to get the Job done. When Wolfine and Sarafina Fly on the Airplane To Hawaii to get Married , Ruthy , Samantha , And Evil Kimberly Tag along. With the Evil Kimberly as the Pilot. Mac does not Have much more as a Roll in the movie. Main Villein is the Minions Themselves ,As Mac Is Kinda A Cowardly , Thinks he's Brave wimp.
Voice Actor : Jim Cummings

Note : I know the Bio is Kinda Harsh and you wonder how can this Possibly Be a kids Movie ? First off... The Villains are Fails , and it Just Does happen they never Fatally harm any other Characters. Far as the Voice actor , I've seen other people do it , so I thought I'd Give it a try. It's who I would love to voice him , And Artwork will be Submitted for him in a minute. And Also , A little stamp that Should be
here :
If anyone says Mac is a Gary Stu think again... I took a couple of Is you character a Gary Stu tests and almost all of times that I took them , It said he was well balanced.

Excellent! Bring a sketchbook (and perhaps a camera, so you can have extra shots to look at when you get home). That will be a fantastic place to get some life drawings of the animals in!

I'd also suggest modifying your style even more, especially when it comes to Lions. They still look a lot like Lion King characters and you can be accused of stealing/copying.

I've read that Tom Bancroft wrote a Book on Animation, and He stated something about That there are 2 types of Animators. The Concept artists that Draw things/Characters in their own Style, then there are the Final Animators who draw the Characters that were Drawn in the Concept artist's style, and Mimicked it into what you see in the Film. I would fall into the Final animator Spot, Because it is Hard for me to draw things in my own style. (Not Impossible, Just really hard.) But I can Mimic styles really well. I will try to draw them in my own style. I also have decided to have The Evil Kimberly be in the same age Group as Sarafina and Wolfine.

Wow! I have not Updated this topic in awhile. I have just gotten Photoshop Cs2. xD Well, I have Since then Done some new art:



The Background:

In this case, try mimicking a range of styles rather than focusing solely on Lion King. Find some other styles of lions (I linked you to a few on DA a while back) and try mimicking those for a while. The more styles you are able to draw in, the easier it will be to develop one of your own. Find out what you like, what you don't like, what looks good, what works for you. Artists do this all the time, taking influence from a range of other artists and mish-mashing it into their own outcome.

Also, another thing that may help is to look up some "behind the scenes" features included in some animated movies and see what they have to say about it.

For example, here's a clip from Alpha and Omega:



"There are artists from all over the world designing our wolves, so we have maybe 60 different looks and styles to pick from. [...] And we would take, oh, we like the eyes this one, or we like the tail on this one, oh, what about the ears on this one? [...] And then we'd have a composite drawing, taking all of these from the different drawings and we say, 'ok, does that capture the personality of our character?'"

(This clip also talks a bit about the balance between stylization and realism.)

Characters and stylization are very much subject to change and progress throughout the development of an animated work. Don't be afraid to experiment a bit. And if you don't like the changes, you can always go back to what you started with--but oftentimes, experimentation eventually leads to something better and more unique than just an initial design.

Example with my own characters:



At the top are my characters Casser (2011) and Chi (2012) as they appeared when I first designed them (I didn't even really initially design Casser; he was an adopted character). At the bottom are their current designs. As you can see, they've changed a LOT, more so in build/stylization than in markings.

What prompted these changes? Experimentation. Over the past year or so I've been doing a lot of experimenting with different stylized builds and better overall designs. These characters, along with others, were altered time and time again (especially Casser--Chi's design came quite quickly) until they were at a more satisfactory point. Sometimes it meant breaking away from basic molds that I used often--but I tried anyways. The result? Vastly more unique designs for each character.


Bottom line: Break out of your comfort zone. Try something new. Experiment. You'll be amazed at what you can come up with when you do. Granted, it's a bit hard at first, and there's no shame in keeping a comfortable style to fall back on for "fun" art--I certainly have one. But don't be afraid to try to break your own mold. It can open worlds.

This video may be about cleaning up a drawing in Photoshop, but they do talk about how add your own flare (starting at 5:44) to a drawing, even if it isn't your own.



You can watch the whole video if you want to ( I would suggest that you do so you don't miss anything that I may have not pointed out), but the most informative parts are at:
5:44
13:50
22:58
24:00
24:48

I decided to post here what I thought should be posted. I have decided to start working on animating it on Youtube to see if people will even like it.