John Kricfalusi and his Animation School

Months ago John K started posting Animation Lessons on his blog. I discovered these at ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive (If you are interested in Animation and haven't visited this blog, GO NOW!).

John K uses Preston Blair's animation lessons as a reference, and they are a valuable resource. Preston Blair's Book was John K's own guide when he was starting to learn to draw animation cartoon characters, and now it's mine.

What is great about these lessons is: You are not being taught these fundamental concepts by just one master, you are getting taught by two (Preston Blair in the referenced book AND John K's advice, guidance, and perspective).

John K is a great teacher with charisma dripping from every word in his blog. This charisma is great for inspiration. He speaks of how great the old "golden age" of animation was, and of the decline in artistic skill in the animation trade today. My interpretation of his blogs intentions is that it is an aid in rebuilding animation as an artistic trade. What I mean by 'artistic trade' is a line of skilled manual artistic work.

To be a 'real' animator you do need a well developed skill set. Fortunately, for people like me, these skill sets (techniques/methods/practices/principles whatever you want to call them) have already been developed and refined.

I phrased my sentence earlier: "rebuilding animation as an artistic trade". This is because the core principles of animation have already been discovered. But traditional animation today does not seem to reflect this. Compare the movement, character, and life found in the animation of the average golden age cartoon to that in your average cartoon today and you will see what I'm talking about. We are standing on the shoulders of giants and it's time we opened our eyes and pull our fingers out as well. If you have any real interest at all in becoming an animator, read John K's blog and you will see the lofty heights at which we stand.

This said I am not as quick on the draw as John K when it comes to blamming todays animation. I appreciate many of todays cartoons some examples are Samurai Jack, Clone Wars, Spongebob Squarepants, and Invader Zim. However I do think the skill demonstrated in Golden Age Animation exceeds that being pumped out of the average studio today. With all the resources we have today (software, hardware, old films, books, accumulated experience) we could do a shit load better than a motion tween (The Cardinal Sin I, myself, am guilty of).

/END RANT

I started on the animation lessons yesterday and discovered that I draw like shit. This was distressing to me yesterday, but this morning, whilst showering(the place where I do all my best thinking), I realised that if I'm this bad now... I can't get any worse through practice.

Starting on the first page of the Preston book I learnt that I can't even draw a decent egg shape. So for the rest of the week I will be drawing egg shapes and guide lines. I mean, if the base shapes guide the whole drawing then they are the most important to draw perfectly. So time spent here is time spent well.

I will scan and post my practice when I gain access to the scanner.