I'm waiting for a friend to go to Hollywood and see a rare 1914 Mary Pickford film, "Behind the Scenes"...doodling on the cintiq as I wait. Pickford, as most of you know, was a huge film star back when the concept of being internationally famous was still a new idea. There's actually a great deal to learn from watching her onscreen that's helpful to animators and story people. When I get back, I'll write a little bit more about it. But in the meantime--Pickford's great, she's subtle--not what you'd think(if you're thinking "Baby Jane" that is).
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6 comments:
She's also Canadian. WOOT!
Hi Jenny,
You prolly don't remember me but I worked on Animaniacs with you... I believe you were doing boards and I was in the Character Layout pool. Anyway, I've been reading your blog for a while now and love the drawings you put up. Especially the digital Cintiq ones. I just recently got a tablet PC and I was wondering what programs or brushes you use to draw your works of art? How did you get that nice 'amrker' look on the mary Pickford drawing?
Hi Mike Milo! Of course I remember you! : )
How's it going? Thanks for coming by the blog and the nice words!
Re: the Cintiq: it's all Photoshop, all the time(PS CS2)...the brush that I used for that Pickord drawing is one my friend invented from the standard Photoshop preset brushes, just altered--I have several, a couple I've made and my favorites that are from my co-story friends--who are experts at PS. This one is mainly a result of taking a regular, medium-line pen, and altering the brush details in the brush window. If you have access to PS, play with the "shape dynamics" and "other dynamics" and you'll get all kinds of cool variations in pressure-results, the texture--and the point of this one was made into an almost calligraphic shape, too(another thing you can tweak). I don't know if this helps...it's mostly a matter of fooling around until you get a result that looks good to you. : )
Great post, Jenny. I've been saying for years that animators ought to spend MUCH more time watching silent movie acting. A good animated character is a caricature; the performance such a character gives ought likewise to be a caricature. Naturalism is not what animation is all about -- so trying to get a naturalistic performance out of a talking fox is (pardon the pun) barking up the wrong tree. Seems to me that time spent with John Barrymore, Lon Chaney, Mabel Normand, Charles Chaplin, Doug Fairbanks, Lillian Gish, and the rest would pay any animator back in spades. This stuff, after all, is what the actual INVENTORS of animated acting (the nine old men, etc) grew up watching!
Thanks Jenny!
I guess I will play around with the brushes a bit more in Photoshop. I also found Alias Sketchbook Pro to work well too! Sorry to post something of irrelavent nature here. I love Mary too! =D
beautiful elegant drawing! :)
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