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Thread: pussycat

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
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    Default pussycat

    I done one like this in Photo Impact a while back. I am now doing a set in Xara. I think they turn out much better.
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  2. #2
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    Default Re: pussycat

    I like your style.
    Soquili
    a.k.a. Bill Taylor
    Bill is no longer with us. He died on 10 Dec 2012. We remember him always.
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  3. #3

    Default Re: pussycat

    It’s a nice drawing Derek, and will be a great drawing when you tweak the lighting.

    You can fix lights and shadows in five minutes, but to describe those changes in words takes a lot longer. So if this seems pedantic, it's because I'm not in your studio to show you with the sweep of a hand and a few strokes of a pencil.

    The cat has a strong shadow cast by a strong rear light, indicating a sunrise or sunset behind it. That’s backed up by the colour of the sky. I’m not sure if a full moon should be next to the rising or setting sun. Maybe, but I would pick one or the other. Considering the strong shadow the cat is casting, the body and head would have shade on their front side away from the sunrise. If the nose and collar have shadows, then the body would too. The nose has a bright reflection on its front side, away from the sunrise, indicating strong light also from the front. Yet there is no shadow from this strong front light cast by either the cat or the bumps on the footpath. The trees in the background are being lit from the left, which doesn’t match the sun behind them, or this other light source from the front. This applies to the bumps on the footpath, which have a different light source again, since their light source seems to be coming from the right. The cat has a black shadow falling on the footpath, while the bumps have none.

    Sometimes people shrug all this off as not mattering, because it’s ‘only a cartoon’, but the reverse is true. It's because cartoons are simple that they often depend on light and shadow to make them believable. Some cartoons use no lights and shadows, so it’s not an issue with them, but when shadows and light are used, it’s vital they are used correctly.

    Generally light from the front or above is most popular. Back lighting makes characters darker, and is good for gloomy, suspenseful or scary themes. Pick your theme and your source of light, and then line up all the shadows and reflections so they match.
    Visiting/participating in TalkGraphics since i/us (’97).

  4. #4
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    Default Re: pussycat

    Hi Derek

    Like Bill, I like your work - I like it a lot, I always have, and it's good to see you featured again in this months Outsider

    Since I know cats don't have feet like that, or noses like that, or whiskers or mouths or bodies anything like that, it bothers me not a jot about the lighting because the effect you have created is just right for the mood and I see in it the real knowledge about the art of cartooning and its distortions of realism to get style

    and the only thing vital in cartooning is style

    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

  5. #5
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    Default Re: pussycat

    I love it. The whole thing. And I love your avatar as well.

    It's a cartoon James. You can make the lighting do anything you want it to. It is called willing suspension of disbelief.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: pussycat

    The last time I criticised the lighting in an image on here I was machine gunned to death by the clique. You used to have to take your life in your hands if you dared to criticise the top table. I'm glad to say things have changed for the better, sooooooo much better.

    I love the cartoon, derek. There are quite possibly a bunch of lighting errors which I didn't spot the first time I looked at it because for me the focal point was the pussy cat. The drawing is full of humour and atmosphere

    PS, James : the trees IMO, like Princess Diana's skirt, are lit from behind, not the left.
    If someone tried to make me dig my own grave I would say No.
    They're going to kill me anyway and I'd love to die the way I lived:
    Avoiding Manual Labour.

  7. #7

    Default Re: pussycat

    Thanks for your comments, Steve, Gary.

    Some cartoonists abandon light and shadows altogether, with simple black and white newspaper gags, or deliberately childish animations like South Park, which can be a lot of fun. They abandon all normal rules, and there is nothing wrong with that.

    I think that when cartoonists do decide to use a more realistic approach, employing the machinery of lights, shadows and reflections, the viewing public will pick on mistakes made. Ten year old kids will be writing letters saying, “Hey mister, even I know that if a guy is standing in front of a search light, his shadow will be going in the opposite direction, not toward the light!”

    Animators using the more realistic approach (as opposed to ‘no rules South Park’) are constrained by various requirements of real life. Imagine a realistically animated man and a woman talking to each other face to face, but unfortunately the cartoonist gets their eye directions out of synch, so they seem to gaze past each other, and it’s clear this is not intentional. Their words don’t synch with their mouths either, and their sentences overlap. He says, “I love you very much, my dearest Elizabeth,” but when he gets to, “very much,” she is already saying, “Elizabeth? Who said my name is Elizabeth?” It’s almost impossible to understand the dialogue. They decide to go for a jog, but their leg speeds don’t match. One is running twice as fast as the other, while moving at the same speed. People are starting to leave the cinema.

    So while it’s absolutely true you can do anything in cartoons, I don't think you should do just anything.

    But then, who am I? Just an old varmint not worth spit.

    Quote Originally Posted by beretgascon View Post
    The last time I criticised the lighting in an image on here I was machine gunned to death by the clique. You used to have to take your life in your hands if you dared to criticise the top table. I'm glad to say things have changed for the better, sooooooo much better.
    I agree, having suffered a few bullet wounds and grenades myself.

    Whether it was Walt Disney Studios or a French Cafeteria in the days of the Impressionists, artists have always gathered to constructively criticize each other’s work. Praise is nice, but constructive criticism is not only more helpful, but more interesting to read, IMO.

    PS, James : the trees IMO, like Princess Diana's skirt, are lit from behind, not the left.
    Heh heh. You’re right, beret, the big tree on the left is lit from behind. I should have said I meant the trees in the background.
    Visiting/participating in TalkGraphics since i/us (’97).

  8. #8
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    Default Re: pussycat

    Quote Originally Posted by James Allen View Post
    Heh heh. You’re right, beret, the big tree on the left is lit from behind. I should have said I meant the trees in the background.
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    To my eyes, they too are lit from behind
    If someone tried to make me dig my own grave I would say No.
    They're going to kill me anyway and I'd love to die the way I lived:
    Avoiding Manual Labour.

  9. #9

    Default Re: pussycat

    You’re right, beret. I think there is also light coming from the left.

    When looking again I saw a couple of other things. The tops of the fence are also lit up from the front, as is the hole in the fence.

    Okay, enough lighting inspections from me for today.
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    Visiting/participating in TalkGraphics since i/us (’97).

  10. #10
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    Default Re: pussycat

    Quote Originally Posted by James Allen View Post

    I think that when cartoonists do decide to use a more realistic approach, employing the machinery of lights, shadows and reflections, the viewing public will pick on mistakes made. Ten year old kids will be writing letters saying, “Hey mister, even I know that if a guy is standing in front of a search light, his shadow will be going in the opposite direction, not toward the light!”

    Gary Larson [Far Side] once drew a cartoon where the husband mosquito came home to his wife washing dishes at the kitchen sink and said he had had a really hard day spreading malaria across half of Africa. He [Mr Larson] observed that he got a sack full of comments that it is the female mosquito that spreads malaria not the male, but zero comments about mosquitos not wearing aprons and not doing washing up...

    This is a perfect benchmark of what [non-artistic] readers think

    Like Beret I look at the cartoon for the effect - and the effect is spot-on
    -------------------------------
    Nothing lasts forever...

 

 

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