Animated cartoons

by Edwin George Lutz

To keep the features the same throughout a number of drawings it is found advantageous to spend a little more time in the preliminary planning when creating the original sketch for the character. The idea is not so much to make a face that is easy to draw as to give it certain distinguishing lineaments that are recognizable in the varying positions needed in animating it.

Besides, when originating a face for frequent repetition in a cartoon, seeking one that can be drawn quickly and easily represented in any view facilitates the work of the tracers.

A little trick of comic graphic artists is that of making the features of a face in small circles, or somewhat roundish curves. This sort of thing is not conducive to good character drawing. The animator also uses these forms—round eyes, circle-like nose, and a circular twist in other parts of the features. Now in his case, this can be forgiven, perhaps, when one considers the difficulties of his art; for these particular forms are, as we shall try to explain immediately below, easy to copy and trace. As in caligraphy, unfixed and diverse in its qualities and peculiarities, so with every individual in pen drawing, certain traits occur in the strokes. In pen-and-ink drawing the more individual and distinctive the style, the harder it will be to copy or counterfeit it. But if the markings approach the geometric, definite and precise, then they are easily copied and imitated. This is why the little circles and similar curved markings are so frequently used in animated cartoons. There is nothing ambiguous in the lineaments of a face made with saucer-like eyes, and a nose like a circle. Its peculiarities are quickly noticed, easily remembered, and traced with facility.

As has been explained, an artist rarely finishes an entire set of drawings for a film without help, but has a staff of helpers. It can be well understood, then, that an essential to success is that the members of this staff keep the same quality of line in all the drawings. One of the difficulties in a staff of helpers is that of keeping a uniformity of portraiture in the characters. And because the circular lineaments are easy to trace that is the reason why they are chosen to form the basis for the details of a face.

Easily drawn circular forms and curves make for speed in animated cartoon work.

There is a tendency in every one, even on the part of the author of the original model, to depart from the first-planned type of face. The approved way of avoiding this is to have a set of sketches of the characters drawn on special sheets of paper that are to be used by all the workers to trace from. In a studio with numerous workers, all rushing to finish a five-hundred-foot reel in every week, it is the custom to have plates engraved from the original sketches and a number of copies printed, so that all may have a set. With these printed copies it will then be merely a matter of having a steady hand and an ability to trace accurately from the copy on to a fresh sheet of paper placed over the illuminated glass of the drawing-board.

No doubt, as it has been referred to so many times, it is clearly understood now what an important part transparent celluloid plays in this art. It is employed not only to save the labor of reproducing a number of times the details of a scene, but also to help keep these details coincident, or uniform. In a face, there is a certainty that its lineaments will be the same if it is drawn but once on celluloid; but if it is copied each time on a long string of successive sheets of paper, there is a likelihood that it will vary and so give the lines on the screen an effect of wiggling about.

There are many little matters of technic and rendering that arise in this art. For example, in making certain parts of a figure, say a coat, in solid black, it has been found best, instead of making it an absolute silhouette, to indicate by the thinnest of white lines the contours of the details. A sleeve, for instance, should be outlined with such a white line. This seems to be a lot of trouble for so little, but, judged by the result on the screen, has been shown to be worth while.

At this point we can touch upon the question of what is meant by “animation.” An artist with little experience may make a series of movement phases for an action, but when the drawings are tested it is found that they do not animate; that is, give in synthesis the illusion of easy motion. It may be a matter of incorrect drawing, perhaps, or he may have the drawings nearly correct, but he has failed to make use of certain little tricks, or, shall we say, failed to observe certain dexterous points in the technic of the art?