Lately, I’ve been really interested in trying to change the way I draw the characters for my books. It’s not so much about the media in which I finish them, but more about the actual style of the drawings. While I do like my drawings, I feel that they sometimes fall into an area that’s a little undefined; they’re not quite real enough, and not quite cartoony enough. Since I don’t really have the interest in drawing more realistically, I’m trying to push the cartoon side of the equation.
I’ve been looking at Amid Amidi’s excellent “Cartoon Modern” as inspiration. It’s a history of animation from the 40s, 50s, and 60s that documents the influences of modern art on the animation industry. I’ve always been attracted to images that are simple and graphic, but feel that during some crucial parts of my artistic development, I thought that being an artist meant that you should be able to make things look “real.” I’ve had a hard time shaking that.
The shapes and proportions on few of these guys are copied straight from the book, with changes only made to the faces and clothes. On occasion, making a copy of a drawing is fine for learning purposes. However, if I’m getting paid for a piece of art, it’s a no-no.
I’m posting a few pages from my sketchbook showing my attempts at drawing simple, more graphic characters. The pages are unedited, because I think it’s important to see the work developing on the page. I could just show the good ones, and pretend the cruddy ones don’t exist, but that’s no fun.
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