The "
line of action" is a simple, usually curving, line that travels through all the forms of a pose. A Disney animator, possibly Bill Tytla or Art Babbitt, used an S-shaped line passing through the pose of this character model drawing of Geppetto from Disney's
Pinocchio.
Other artists have applied the principle, including the cartoonist
T. S. Sullivant (1854-1926), who was a big influence on the Disney animators.
Here's another example from a Victorian painter,
Herbert Draper (1863-1920), in his canvas "Flying Fish."
Feel free to leave links of other examples in the comments.
-----
More in the books:
In this brand new episode of CLEMENTOONS, Clement makes a sled out of a crushed soda can and embarks on a wild ride. (Direct link to video)
CLEMENTOONS is my stop-motion animated adventure series about a little cartoon person on a perilous journey through the real world to the toyland of Melville.
The animation is painstakingly shot frame by frame and then compiled into a movie. In this shot, a geared-down Lego motor pulls the sleds at a constant but very slow rate, while a still camera shoots at five second intervals.
There's no green-screen and no digital effects. When Clement goes through the brambles, he's really going through them.
The episodes will be released out of order. Each one begins with an escape and ends with a cliffhanger. ------Previous videos:Clement Meets Miss BubblesClementoons: Behind the ScenesSong by
Frankie Trumbauer "There'll Come a Time," 1927,
Clementoons theme music by
The Yanks, "If There Weren't Any Women in the World" 
On Monday morning, I'll be releasing the first full installment of Clementoons animation, an episode called "Troubles with Bubbles."
The video features Clement's encounter with a dancer named Bubbles LaRue. She's ten times Clement's size, and she's the most beautiful and dangerous female in Melville, the world of cartoon people. I created this poster as a prop for the production. It's painted in casein on illustration board.
I based the style of the poster on the classic posters of the Moulin Rouge, with their fabulous swooping lettering, bright colors, and sense of excitement.
Miss Bubbles is a marionette, originally built and performed by Bil and Cora Baird, the puppeteers who created the goatherd scene in "The Sound of Music" (
link to that scene on YouTube).
She is a treasure of Mel Birnkrant's collection of comic character toys and puppets.
-----
Read more about
Miss Bubbles at Mel Birnkrant's websiteVideo:
Clementoons Behind the ScenesVideo:
Toy Collector Mel Birnkrant
I'd like to introduce a behind-the-scenes tour of CLEMENTOONS, the animation technique I've been developing to tell the story of Clement. (
Direct link to YouTube video)
Clement is a bold little guy, but he's always getting himself into trouble. He's on a journey through our ordinary world to a magical place called Melville, where cartoon people have congregated to form a surreal society.
He'll meet plenty of other characters along the way. I'll release the next episode, "Clement on the Can" later this month.
When I was developing a title card design for the CLEMENTOONS series, I looked at a lot of the opening graphics that inspired me as a kid. Most of my favorites were from the Golden Age of American Animation in the 1930s and '40s.
When a cartoon started with the Looney Tunes titles it made my heart race with anticipation--still does. I love the cockeyed block letters, and the concentric circles airbrushed to look like a tunnel. It was a special treat to see Bugs or Daffy or Porky featured in the title.
I also adored the title cards from the Walt Disney cartoon shorts of the 1930s. They conveyed the promise of beautiful animation. Note the "burlap" background, the gradated light, the dimensional lettering, and date written in Roman numerals.
All the cartoons from that period had beautiful titles. They were all colorful, beautifully lit, with an interesting texture behind the letters. I couldn't figure out how they made them, but they seemed to be made by hand from real materials.
For the Clementoons titles, I wanted to see Clement actually animated in front of the titles, and then somehow jumping back into them. If I made the stepped windows rectangular, in the same proportion as a 9x16 video screen, then I figured the camera could dolly back into that space, following Clement as he jumped into his new adventure.
I did all sorts of R&D for the letters, and finally discovered that craft foam worked best. I cut the letters out with a sharp X-Acto knife and spray-glued them onto a spacer above the background. For the background texture, I experimented with real burlap, but it didn't look right, so I hand sculpted the texture out of
Magic Sculpt
.
Here's what the set-up looks like with my Canon T3i camera mounted on an improvised Lego dolly and set up for the stop motion sequence. Note the white "C" shape in the upper left. That's called a "gobo" and it's made of an aluminum pie plate. It's used to shape the light on the titles.
Here's the final sequence, which takes about 8 seconds. (
Direct link to YouTube video) Note the focus pull and the dolly move at the end, zooming into the stepped rectangle.
I recorded the blink sound effects on a mandolin, plucking the strings between the bridge and the tailpiece. The theme music is courtesy of a young band called
The Yanks, in which my son Dan happens to be the accordionist.
The Clementoons theme tune is called "If There Weren't Any Women in the World," an old barn dance they learned from fiddle player Seamus Quinn. If you listen closely, you'll hear a saxophone on the track, played by three-time All-Ireland champion Isaac Alderson.
-----
More about animation title cards at
Animation TreasuresRespective titles © and ® Disney Enterprises, Inc / Warner Bros. / MGM / Paramount / Universal
Clementoons is © and TM little old me.
.jpg?picon=1009)
