THE SIMPSONS NEWS – Full Frontal Naked Bart in a French Commercial

The Simpsons Quote:

[Comic Book Guy sits at his computer.]

“Hey, what the? Huh, the Internet King. I wonder if he can provide faster nudity.”  – Comic Book Guy.

Sometimes, when you work in animation, you end up working a some very strange projects.

Sometimes you end up working on foreign commercials with full frontal cartoon nudity in them.

This happened to me, and I’m going be talking about in this weeks post.

You can watch the video or simply read what I have to say below.

There’s is a link to the commercial I talk about further down the page:

The First Full Frontal Bart

Years ago I worked on a French detergent commercial that used The Simpsons characters.

It’s one of those surprising and strange projects that you’re asked to do. I believe I did character layout on it.

In case you don’t know what Character Layout is, CLICK HERE, I wrote a whole post explaining it. In nutshell, it’s the process where we set up the shots and draw in the acting and the key animation poses of a scene.

Alright, so here’s the interesting thing about this French commercial: It ends with the family naked at the end.  At least some of the family.  They kinda run off screen before you get to see any of their nakedness.  Except for Bart.

It’s the first time that Bart was ever show naked, full frontal. They did it again The Simpsons movie and made a big joke out of it.  But that French commercial was the first time they did that naked joke.

The Note From Matt Groening

Now, this was the thing I found interesting.  The storyboard artist had drawn Bart, anatomically correct. But you see…man I wish I had some of the artwork so I can show you but I don’t. I did find the video and you can see it below but the thing is, there was this note. I remember the note because, I think I was doing the layout scene or…I don’t remember what it was but, the note was from Matt Groening.

Well Matt Groening didn’t want Bart to be drawn anatomically correct in the way it was drawn in the board.  He wanted the drawing to be a little bit more abstract. You’ll see what he looks like in the actual Youtube video. That’s exactly the look that Matt Groening gave us to have Bart look like.

I thought that was very interesting and very funny.

So if you want to see the first full frontal naked appearance of Bart, here you go:

Comment

What did you think? Had you ever seen that before?

Pulp Simpsons Continue

I’m still sharing more Pulp Simpson drawing on my newsletter.  It’s mash up of Simpsons and Pulp Fiction that the artists on the show just decided to do for fun.

I’m sharing it with my newsletter subscribers. If you want to join in the fun, sign up.  If you do so before next Thursday, I’ll send you this weeks’ email.

WEBSITES – The Drawing Website

I just thought I’d remind you that my ART OF DRAW FU pdf is available to download for FREE.

This book is specially written for anyone who thinks you need to be talented to learn to draw.

Click the link below to read what the book is all about and how you can get yourself a free copy.  Don’t miss out.

GET FREE BOOK

For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES

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I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS – So as I Was Walking Through the Fox Studio Lot, I Saw Kevin Smith and…

The Simpsons Quote:

“Fame was like a drug. But what was even more like a drug were the drugs.” ~ Homer

As a kid, I grew up in Burbank and I saw lots of celebrities around town. Working on The Simpsons, I’ve seen my share of celebrities.

When I worked on The Simpsons Movie I saw a few more, to add to my collection.

This time around I saw Kevin Smith and I’ll tell you what happened this week.

You can hear my story  by watching the video or you can read the story below.  It’s the same story either way:

Walking to the Parking Lot I Saw…

I worked on The Simpsons movie on storyboards in the story department. I actually had to drive down to the Fox lot everyday and worked there.

That in itself was a bit of an adventure. There’s so many stories and so many things that happened there, that I can talk about.

So here’s one of them. One really small one so it’s going to be a very short post.

So, we’re in a movie studio, and sometimes actors or celebrities that we’re familiar with, walk around.

One night, a friend of mine and I were leaving. We were headed to our car.

It was nighttime and it was dark.  As we were walking to the parking lot. I happen to look up ahead and see an actor director that I recognized, Kevin Smith.

Now, I’m not one of the these people who like to approach actors or celebrities. It’s just not one of my things. I’m generally, a shy person and I also don’t like to bother people.

But I do get a kick from seeing celebrities,

“Hey, there’s so and so,” then I can say to people, like I am right now, “Hey I saw Kevin Smith.”

The Loud Whisper

So I was walking with my friend and as we were talking I whispered,

“Hey, there’s Kevin Smith.”

He turns to me, “Huh?”

“I said, there’s Kevin Smith,” and as I say this we’re getting closer to him.  He frowns at me,

“What?”

In a loud whisper as start repeating, “Kevin Smith, there’s Kevin Smith, Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith is over there. Kevin Smith.”

“What? I can’t hear what you’re saying,”

So I blurt out, “THERE’S KEVIN SMITH!” and at this point we’re right next to the guy. Of course then he looks right at us. I mean I just yelled out his name.

It was so embarrassing, I didn’t know what to do. I just had to walk with my head down. Trying to cover my face, “don’t mind me, just passing through.”

Uh, Yeah…

It was so ridiculous and so…right out of a Kevin Smith joke.

Yeah, so that’s my story. It’s one of my, “here’s what happened as I was working on The Simpsons movie, anecdotes.”

Has something like this ever happened to you? It’s just embarrassing.

After that I turned to my friend,

“Look what you made me do!” I don’t like calling attention to myself and it was embarrassing and I’m sure Kevin Smith could care less and doesn’t even know it happened and it doesn’t bother him.

But it’s funny and embarrassing at the time. I knew right then that I had a story to tell.

I hope you liked my story.

Please Leave a Comment

If something like this has ever happened to you, let me know.

Share the pain, share the pain!

Pulp Simpsons Continues

I’m still sending “Pulp Simpsons” art on my newsletter.  I’ll be doing it for a while.  There’s a ton of art there.

What is “Pulp Simpsons?” It’s The Simpsons/Pulp Fiction mash up drawing that The Simpsons crew did for fun around the time the movie came out.

If you want to get in on the fun and see the art, opt in to receive my newsletter.  If you do, I’ll send you this week’s e-mail.

Don’t miss out.

WEBSITES – The Art of Draw Fu

Tomorrow I’ll be releasing my book The Art of Draw Fu for free to anyone who has opted in to www.TheDrawingWebsite.com Newsletter.

If you want to receive your copy, opt in and you’ll be one of the first people to get one.

For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS – Is it REALLY How the Pros Draw The Simpsons?

The Simpsons Quote:

“Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.” – Homer Simpson

Have you seen the book: “The Simpsons Handbook: Secret Tips from the Pros”?  Have looked at it and said, is it REALLY Secret Tips from the Pros?

I mean, why would they print a book that ACTUALLY taught you to draw The Simpsons? These books are always drawn by people who have to relation to the Pros who work on the show right?

That’s what I’m going to talk about this week.  IS the info in, “The Simpsons Handbook: Secret Tips from the Pros” really how the artists on the show, draw the characters?

You can either watch the video or read the post.  The info is the same.

Head up, all links to the book on this post are affiliate links.

And don’t forget to look further down into the blog to see the Pulp Fiction/Simpsons mash up drawings and the Simpsonized Doctor Who art. I’m also offering some free drawing couching. For more on that see below:

Is it True?

I happen to know that, “The Simpsons Handbook: Secret Tips from the Pros,” the part where it says, “Secret Tips from the Pros,” is TRUE.

What you get in the book is actually information on how the draw the characters on the show from actual Simpsons artists. They actually hired some of my friends. For example, the book says, character art by:

• Erick Tran
• Joe Wack
• Paul Wee
• Mike B. Anderson
• Shawn Cashman
• Liz Climo
• Jonathan Gebhart
• Rob Oliver

All these people that I’m naming are they’re ALL coworkers.  I mean, it’s ridiculous…these are my friends right?

It’s weird, because if you really want to know how to draw the characters for real, this book tells you how to do it.

But You Don’t Have to Take MY Word For It

Don’t take my word for it okay, I’m going to prove it to you.

So using the hand outs that we get, I’ll show you.  It’s an old hand out and we’ve updated some of this stuff but I’m going to use it as an example.

Now, so I don’t get in trouble, I’m only going to show you small parts of the hand out sheets.  Here we go:

See that lumps there? Okay.

The light bulb body.

The three cups long that his arm is.

Okay so that’s from our official how to draw hand outs that we get as artists.

Now I’m going to show you what’s in the book under Homer:

See there? The lumps for the hair:

The light bulb body.

The Three cups long that his arm is.

The Big Difference

In the book, it’s as if they took all that stuff we’ve got in the hand outs and cleaned them up. You saw how rough and unorganized the info was in the hand outs.

We’ve pretty much replaced a lot of what we hand out to new artists, with scanned sheets of this book.  It’s a cleaner version of what is in our old hand outs.

Our old hand outs where unorganized and rough. Even for professionals it got really confusing so we’re using the book now. If fact, the book expands upon many of the concepts for drawing the characters. It’s really handy.

All the new artist, they pick u the book or see the scans of the some of the pages from the book so that they can learn to draw the characters.

The Reason I’m Even Bringing This Up

IF you want to know what we know about drawing the characters, then “The Simpsons Handbook: Secret Tips from the Pros,” is what you need. It was drawn by us, who work on the show. This is what we do. This is us.

I just thought I’d bring this up and talk about this book.

A lot of people talk about this book, have seen the book and it’s almost like a joke,

“Hey look at this. How to draw the Simpsons. Heh heh heh yeah right,” no, this is REALLY how we draw the characters.

There was a coworker who was brand new and he came in and as a joke, he showed me the book,

“Hey look, I got this book. But I’m not going to use it. I just got it because I was curious and I thought it was interesting,” and I turned to  him,

“Why aren’t you going to use it? This is pretty much what they’re going to give you to draw from anyway,” and his eyes get all wide,

“REALLY? I thought that was joke.”

“No, look at the artist credited in the book. The art is from us.”

How Valuable is to You?

The book, if you purchase it, is $39.00.  You can probably get it cheaper at Amazon.

I think it just comes down to what it’s worth to you. If you really want know how to draw the characters the way we do it on the show, then it’s really a good deal.

So What Can You do With This Info?

On this week’s email, I sent out the first of many Simpsons and Pulp Fiction mash up drawings.  See what we artists do behind the scenes with our ability to draw Simpsons characters.

Here’s a small sample:

Want more? I’ll send you this week’s email if you opt in to receive e-mails before next Thursday.  The longer you wait the more you miss out on.

WEBSITE – Do You Want Free Drawing Coaching From Me?

I’ve been talking a lot about having mentors and friends that can help you improve your drawings. Sometimes, circumstances don’t allow this to happen. Because of this, I thought perhaps I could offer my services, as part of my services from www.TheDrawingWebsite.com

Sometimes you need someone to go over your stuff so you can see your work in a new way. It helps you improve quicker. This is what helped me get better faster. This is STILL the fastest way for me to get better.

I want to do that for you, I want to help you that way. I just couldn’t figure out a way that would make it as easy for everyone involved as possible, until last week.

This is what I came up with. You tell me what you think.

To Do That, Send Me Your Art

I’m going to accept TEN people’s work. That means, ten people will send me a drawing, and I’m going to go over it. Give you tips and advise. Tell you what to should look out for and what you should work on.

There is no draw back to doing this. You send me your drawing and I basically give you a FREE lesson on how YOU can improve your skills via e-mail. No video, just drawing over your stuff with commentary written on it.

Where do you send the drawing? What are the conditions?

If you’re interested to know this and more, CLICK HERE.

You find out the information you need to know, but act fast because the offer will only last for two weeks from this post.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS – Doctor Who Simpsonized

And speaking of Simpsons mash ups, I found this on the internet and thought it was sooo AWESOME!

I’d TOTALLY watch this episode.  It’s REALLY difficult to Simpsonize someone and still capture the right likeness.  I can’t believe what a good job this artist did.

For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS – Artists and the Value of Learning to Market Yourself.

Simpsons Quote:

Homer: (places a dollar on the counter) I’d like a colossal donut, please. Just like the one on the sign. (Homer is given a regular-sized donut.) D’oh, nuts! That’s false advertising!

How often do you hear an artist talk about marketing?

When does it come up in a drawing class? What art school has a special class dedicated to Direct Marketing?

Is it even part of the artist’s radar? Do we even consider it to be a valuable skill or does marketing have a negative connotation?

I’m going to explore this topic this week. I’ve come to believe it’s an essential part of an artist’s skill set and I’ll explain why below.

You can either watch the video or read the post. They both say pretty much the same thing:

Marketing

I was never taught marketing.  Not in any art class I took. It wasn’t ever mentioned. I don’t know any artist who was taught marketing in any art school they went to.

I’ve been learning a lot about marketing recently. I’ve come to the realization that everyone who draws…well, not just those who draw, EVERYBODY, period, should learn marketing.

Why?

Because, we’re ALL selling something.

Any person that’s gone to a job interview to get a job for any reason, is selling something. That something is YOURSELF.

You’re Already a Marketer

When you go to a job interview, what are you doing? What’s a job interview?

It’s a “pitch session.” A “pitch session” of YOU. You’re pitching yourself, your service, as someone who has what they need.

What’s a resume? It’s “testimonials’ of your past work, right? It’s proof that your worthy to have the job. It’s “social proof” that you’ve got experience.

Marketing is the same thing. It’s pitching a service, pitching a good, pitching something of value to someone. A value you exchange for equal value, in the form of money.

Marketing in the purest sense is getting the word out, that you have a service that will help other with what they need.

Direct Marketing

When I talk about marketing, I’m not talking about any kind of marketing. I’m talking specifically about Direct Marketing.

Direct Marketing is a different kind of marketing. It’s not like Brand Marketing. It’s not like having a billboard with a Santa Clause drinking a coke or someone on TV eating a burger. That’s not what I’m talking about.

Direct making is getting your potential customer to directly respond to your ad. When you put an ad somewhere, you get a direct measurable result.

When you put money into a Direct Marketing ad, it results in getting a client. The ad you use gives information that allows your client to contact you for your service.  That way, if you spend money, say, in a newspaper ad. The amount of money you spent on the ad pays itself back through the clients it brings in and may even bring MORE money than you spent on the ad.

This response marketing, is measurable.

Brand Marketing is far more difficult to measure. There’s no real way to measure if anyone will buy your burger or drink you soft drink, just because you put an ad up with your drink in it without some way to track an actionable response.

Big companies do this because they have enough money to throw at Brand Marketing. As artists we can’t afford to be wasting our money this way. We need results from any marketing you may pay for. You want something you can measurable results from.

Avoid “Hope Marketing”

There are many forms of Direct Marketing. There are also many sources to learn about Direct Marketing. I highly recommend you seek them out and learn these things.

Without it, what will happen is, you’ll put your portfolio online and you’ll sit and think that by taking that action people will magically go to your site and give you work.

Not going to happen. It’s what Direct Marketers call “Hope Marketing.” You don’t want. You don’t want to put yourself out there and “hope” someone sees your work and gives you a job.

You want them to come to you because you’ve gone out of your way to show them what you can do for them.

Direct Marketing should never be about you. It should always be about what your service can provide for other people. For you potential clients.

It’s about them first, “here’s what you’re having problems with, I can help you with that.”

That’s what Direct Marketing is all about.

I advice everyone, but specifically you artists, freelancers, animators whatever your in, to learn this. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a good job in a studio or a steady job.

Learn it. I guarantee, it will help you no matter what your circumstances. It’s a very important skill set, to hone, learn, and have.

I hope this has given you some food for thought. I may be writing more in depth about this in the future.

Simpsons Crew Christmas Cards

If you like or dislike what you’ve read here, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. If you have anything to add, even more so.

This week, in my newsletter, I sent some examples of Simpsons Christmas cards that my co-workers handed out this year. They’re all very cool and Simpsons related.  This is the kind of unique item, you’ll never see in stores…or anywhere.

If you’d like to receive a copy of this e-mail, opt in below before next Thursday and I’ll send to you.

Have a Merry Christmas.

THE DRAWING WEBSITE- Formulas – An Introduction to Drawing Shorthand

Yesterday I managed to get my latest Drawing Website post up on my site.

It was the closest I’ve ever come to not meeting the post deadline. I honestly thought I was going to upload it later in the week.

There were so many false starts, so many useless and unused drawings.

It took me a while to even wrap my head around exactly what part of my topic I was suppose to focus on.  I was in a panic about it.

I then, simply sat down in a quite place and began to write.  The post took shape, I knew exactly the artwork that was needed to illustrate my points and I cranked away at them the next day, whenever I had a chance.

Once the artwork was done, I wrote a second draft of the post and it was ready to go.

So here is it, just for you. I hope you like what I wrote:

Formulas – An Introduction to Drawing Shorthand

For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS – Breakdown of a Simpsons scene: Itchy and Scratchy trying to Kill Bart and Lisa

I explain this crazy drawing below.

Simpsons Quote:

“Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.” — Homer Simpson

I’ve animated on The Simpsons, quite a few times. By “animated”, I mean, done it all. From key poses to inbetweening to putting all the info on exposure sheets.

One of the times I did this was on Treehouse of Horror IX, when Itchy and Scratch chase Bart and Lisa into the Live with Regis and Kathie Lee show.

Basic Animation Principles

When you first learn to animate,  one of the first things you’re taught to animate is the “bouncing ball”.  It is meant to teach you the animation principle of squash and stretch. It’s usually the second lesson you’re taught in animation.  The first lesson being “ease in” and “ease out”.  Sometimes using a pendulum swinging or a ball starting to roll down a slant.

What am I talking about?

Okay, real quick, in case you don’t know:

Got this picture at: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/MichaelJungbluth/20110114/6788/Adding_Weight_to_Your_Game_Design_Part_6_Slow_In_Slow_Out.php

“Ease in” and “Ease out” – is when an object, like a  pendulum, slowly begins moving and then speed up as it moves forward. When it reaches the other side it slows down do to gravity and then slowly swings the other way.

In animation, in order to get this effect, you put more drawing in the slow parts and less drawing in the fast parts causing a “easing into” and “easing out of” effect.

Almost every action an animator animates has an “easing in” or “easing out” component.

Got this picture at: http://mattsfdablog.blogspot.com/2011/10/principles-of-animation.html

“Squash and stretch” – is an animation principle where an animated object is deformed (without changing it’s mass) for a single frame of film, either by squashing or stretching, in order to get a sense of weight or impact. Like when a ball hits the floor and bounces back up.

So what does this have to do with the episode? Read on.

Bart and Lisa Fall in Soup

Steve Moore, my director, asked me if I wanted the assignment doing this live action scene and I jumped a the chance. I talked up my animation skills to get it. It had been years since I had gotten a chance to fully animate anything. On top of that, I had never worked on anything quite like this either.

To be quite frank, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do it.  I was telling Steve how much experience I had, but really, it was only from a few animation tests I’d done. This would be something outside of my experience.

When I got my scene folder, it was full of pre-pegged Photostats . Photostats, are frame by frame photos of a of live action scene. This is what I was going to use in order to draw the characters interacting with the live action.

The one thing that you don’t see in the final version that was present in my Photostats, was the tennis balls that where dropped into the pot in order to make the splashes.  I covered the balls with the characters.

So I’m sitting there looking at the stats, roll up my sleeves and just start animating as I do it all the time.  I just went for it.

All those hours of sitting in “the little dark room” for Jeff , all the tests I’d done for classes, years of drawing the characters, and anything else I could draw upon, kept me going.

As I worked, it suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t really doing anything complicated at all. Just because I was drawing characters with legs and arms didn’t mean that I was animating anything I hadn’t done before.

As I worked on the scene, it became VERY clear that I was basically animating a variation of the bouncing ball test. Let me show you.

Keep in mind that the screenshots I’ve got below are not the best representation of the drawings I would have liked to capture.  The method I use to get the screen captures was really imprecise:

Okay so taking a look at the screens above, in screen 1 you can see Lisa and Bart in a very strange pose. This would be a “not-so-deformed” stretch pose.

When Bart gets out of the pot, I drew a more stretched out drawing but was unable to capture it, so we have the drawing in screen 2 where he’s actually at the peak of this “ease out”.

Then he “stretches” in 3, landing with one foot first,  in order to make it more natural looking.

In screen 4, he lands and that’s the “squash” pose.

He “stretches” again in 5, as he takes to the air.

In 6 I didn’t quite capture the apex of his jump, but I did get Lisa’s “squash” pose.

7 is Lisa’s “ease out” pose and then her stretch on screen 8.  That’s that, the rest is just the kids running off screen.

Having done that, I was then able to do Itchy and Scratchy easier.  I went out of my way to really push them more since they’re “cartoons”:

Alright, so I start with a subtle stretch of the two character in screen 1 as they fall.

As Scratchy leaves the pot in screen 2 I really stretched him out. He looks deformed.

Then in screen 3 I REALLY do something crazy. This is a “smear”.  This kind of effect was used a lot in Looney Toon cartoons when a character had to do a quick action in only one frame.  I needed Scratchy to end up in the pose on screen 4 without having to use up any frames to do it, so I did this crazy blur effect.

When you look at the final animation, you can’t even see it unless you’re looking for it.  It happens so fast.  It totally works.

Screen 5 is Scratchy “easing out” of the apex of his jump and then stretching to to land in screen 6.

Screen 7 we see Scratchy in his “squash” position.  Itchy is now out of the pot, BUT if you go frame by frame, you will see that Itchy also had a crazy blur effect with his knife.  I wasn’t able to capture it though.

In Screen 8 you can clearly see Itchy stretching as Scratchy “eases out” of his jump.

I REALLY stretch Itchy in screen 9. He’s really fighting gravity as it pull down on him.

Just for fun and variety, I had Itchy do a flip when he jumped, as you can see in screen 10.

It turned out looking good. After worrying about the scene and whether or not I was going to be able to pull it off, it turned out to be really simple and really fun. It just required, mostly, basic animation knowledge with just a touch of advance know how.

Special E-mail Surprise

So in THIS week’s e-mail, I posted a very special surprise. I happen to own a photocopy of  the manuscript that became: Character Animation Crash Course!
By (Disney animator) Eric Goldberg (who designed and animated the Genie in Aladdin). Yes, it’s an affiliate link.

I used this manuscript in order to figure out how to do the “smear” effect on Scratchy. There’s a page in the manuscript that explains it. I don’t own Eric Goldberg’s book, so I can’t say whether or not the page I’m referring to is in it.

What I have done though is pasted the page in the e-mail I sent out this week. That way, even if you own the book, you can see the original manuscript page where it came from.

If you want to get this e-mail, simply opt in to the e-mail this week BEFORE next Thursday and I’ll resend the e-mail.

If you’re not receiving my e-mails, your missing out on a lot of fun stuff like this.

WEBSITE – Drawing Stick Figure with style

A new Drawing Website post is up.

Alright, so the drawing on the left doesn’t look like much, but believe me when I say that, the post this drawing belongs to will change the way you look at cartoon characters.

I really went all out on this new post and you have not idea how excited I am for you to read it.

Whether you’re a real beginner or much more advanced at drawing, this post has info on design that you might have never heard before.

In fact, I know a lot of professional draftsmen, who don’t know some of what I’ve written in this post. The crazy part, is that I do it all with stick figures!

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to draw cool stick figures, this is the post for you.

Check it out, give it a read, and leave me feedback about what you think.

Stick figures, with style! – Basic design.

For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS – A Lesson, Indirectly Learned from Brad Bird.

Simpsons quote (…sort of):

“When in doubt, lower the horizon line” – Brad Bird

The quote above was taped to Simpson Director Steve Moore’s office door.

It had a self-caricature of Brad Bird happily pushing down a line while he stared straight at you. It was obviously an enlarged copy of a doodle/note that Brad Bird had written Steve at some point.

That thing was taped to Steve’s door for YEARS. The only reason it isn’t anymore, is because we moved to a new studio and I think Steve forgot to post it up.

I’ve worked for Steve more than any other Director on the show.  He’s been really good to me, and he even championed me to have the current position I have now. For which I’m truly grateful.

Going in and out of his office for all those years and seeing that note posted on his door, insured that I would have that quote embedded into my brain forever.

So, what does that DO to a person?

What it Did to Me

Just because I had a studio job didn’t mean that “I had arrived”. Through out my years on the show, I’ve also taken years of drawing class. Almost all of which where taught by industry professionals. And none of them gave me a grade nor college credit.

I took them, NOT to have a sheet of paper TELLING people I was TAUGHT to draw. I took them so I could SHOW people I CAN draw (and I still try to go figure drawing every week).

One of the classes I took was an animation development class. It was like what would probably be called a “Concept Art” class only for animation. Part of what was taught in that class was how to create well designed and composed environments.

The reason I bring this up is because of the enormous influence that class had on me and my work from that point on.  That class, combined with Brad Bird’s quote made me hyper aware of how I could improve the layouts of the scenes I had to work on.

The Result

Sometime in 1996, I worked on the episode BART AFTER DARK.

I believe this was around the time I was taking my development classes. My mind was reeling with the theories of dynamic compositions.

So what happens when you learn something new? Well, you can’t WAIT to try it out, of course.

Director Dominic Polcino, handed me a VERY involved section of the show. Lot’s of crowds and destruction. I couldn’t WAIT to apply what I had learned in my classes. So I took one look at the storyboards that were given to me of the scenes I was to layout and I did what Brad Bird had brainwashed me to do.

I lowered the horizon line.

In case you don’t know what that means, to put it simply, I lowered the camera in just about every single shot.

Behold, the sequence that is almost all up shot:

Okay, so the sequence begins with the scene above of some of the characters walking to the gate.  The board had the shot composed with the camera at about eye level. I lowered it.  The result was a much more dynamic angle on the characters and a more interesting size comparison.

As I was working on these scene, the biggest challenge I faced was the character designs.  The Simpsons just aren’t really designed to look good in any other angle besides 3/4 view.  When you lower the camera, you really have to solve the design so that it looks right.

For example:

The scene above was really difficult. The women had lip stick and needed to still look pretty and “on model” but how far back should I draw the bottom lip? How much should I push the overbite?

Well, I ended up cheating by diminishing the overbite a bit. Then they looked okay. But it took a few tries to get that right.

And then there’s Helen Lovejoy:

She’s got a one of the strangest designs on the show. Drawing from any angle is tough but from a low angle was just painful. I don’t think I got it right but it worked okay for this scene.

Again, I think this shot also had a much more straight forward composition but I lowered the horizon line. I also think the board had the characters in the background much more straight on and flat.  I added two point perspective here and made the crowd more interesting to look at.

In the drawing of Belle above, I really “squared off” her face to work with the perceptive of the drawing. I literally drew her face as a box and put her features on it.

Once again, I lowered the horizon line on this drawing. The version of the shot in the storyboard was a little more straight forward.

OH, and by the way, can you tell I was having a little too much fun drawing the women? Yeah, I was single at the time. Sorry.

That said, drawing women is really really fun. Simply ask, just about any female artist. It’s usually their favorite subject to draw.

BIG pan on this one. A lot going on. This one took a while.

Helen knocking over plants, Maude stomping, Apu on a tree, Frink chopping down the tree, Otto throwing rocks, Jimbo jumping the fence.

And the cop coming toward camera had to work within the perceptive I had established.

Oh, and there goes Ned running in the background with a torch.

Below is yet another two point perspective with a low horizon:

I really posed out the stair climbing by Homer on this one.

You can really see that it was me who did this scenes because it has some of my “stand by acting”.  Belle has her arm in front of her with a “claw” hand.  I tend to draw the “claw” hand a lot.

And if you look at the blond woman in the back, she has her fist up in front of her and her shoulder up.  That’s my “I’m worried” Anime acting.

Low horizon again. Not the best moment to have gotten a screen grab of. Twin hand acting, is bad.

This is one of the few scenes where I didn’t over pose the women in the background.

Above we have, two point perceptive, low horizon and the Background artist didn’t re-draw my fountain. It was drawn fast and rough. I though the Background artist was going to put it on model. I’m not sure why it didn’t happen.

I made up the look of the mermaid on the fountain thinking it would be re-drawn. I made it look a bit like The Little Mermaid. No, I don’t have ANYTHING against the movie or character.

I remember drawing Moleman here, and it was a pain in the neck.

The scene was never meant to be seen like this. It’s cheated quite a bit. The camera move was meant to hide the perceptive cheats.

Above is another bad screen grab. Twinning again. Low horizon and two point perceptive.

Oops! There goes the Little Mermaid.

And above we have the final low horizon line shot of the sequence. A two point perspective AND Anime acting.

The thing about setting the camera down low is that you tend to get an interesting variety of sizes and shape, pretty quickly. It’s almost, instant depth of field. Especially if you have a foreground element like Homer above.

High Horizon Line

The next two scenes below have a high horizon line.

Believe me, I tried to lower the horizon but the director wouldn’t let me.

when it comes to crowd shots, I often try to compose them with a low horizon line, that way you only draw one visible row of people and the rest of the crowd is obscured behind the first group.  It’s less to draw.

Couldn’t get away with that in the shot below:

Yeah, the shot above was time consuming. And there’s Homer with my Anime acting.

OUCH! Yet another screen grab with bad twin hands acting. Don’t try this at home kid.

Had I tried this shot from a low angle, the crowd would have blocked Homer.

This shot was done as one long shot and was broke up into three in editing.

Once again, I have my over posed women in the background.

One thing I will say I’m happy with in this scene, is the acting on Homer’s singing where he sings, “Caaaaare”.  I thought it worked well.

An Open Message to My E-mail Readers

Thank you so much for responding to my question on last week’s e-mail. I wrote this post in direct response to you giving me feedback.

Next time I promise to respond personally to your e-mail. I’ve come up with a way I could do that which I mention in THIS week’s e-mail.

Again, thank you.

Now, if you’re reading this and haven’t opted in to receive some behind the scenes e-mail and other nuttiness, what are you waiting for?

In the e-mail I sent out this week, I wrote about and posted screenshots, of the sexiest scenes I did on this episode. Scenes which made me hope no one walked into my cubicle and caught me drawing. Very embarrassing.

You’ve missed out on this e-mail already but don’t miss out on the next one.

…well, tell you what, if at least ten people or more sign up to my e-mail list BEFORE next week’s post (next Thursday), I’ll send it out just to those new people too.

Sound good?

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