seqastuff:

“These Spongebob drawing tips were prepared for a class at Nickelodeon in 2005. One of the big problems with animation studio model sheets is that the characters are invariably standing in completely stiff poses that make them look like they’ve been cheerfully impaled on a titanium rod.

To help the storyboard artists loosen up a bit, drawings are clipped out of the storyboards showcasing the best of the comedic and dynamic pose possibilities. Most of the artists tack those pose sheets up on the wall, but they soon become little more than wallpaper.

These tip sheets were created to encourage artists tobreak outof the horizontal and vertical stiffness of the SpongeBob model sheets, and to show how a little bit ofmovementandactionandactingcan make the cartoon characters come to life.

If you want to learnhow to draw SpongeBob, orhow to draw any cartoon characterswith a little morezip, I hope these drawing tips will give you some ideas.

These drawing tips go way beyondSpongeBob…the reason I’m posting them here is that these principles can be applied to all kinds of different drawing and staging applications.

I certainly didn’t come up with this stuff on my own…it’s really a distillation of many of the things other people (Joe Kubert,Bob Camp,Bill Wray,Tuck Tucker,Jay Lender,Larry Leichliter,Dan Povenmire,Derek Drymon,Steve Hillenburg, etc.) taught me as I was learning how to draw comics and storyboards.

If you don’t have a mentor or teacher to help you out, just study as muchRoy Crane,Harvey Kurtzman,Dan Gordon,Jack Kirby,Hank Ketcham,Osamu Tezuka,Hayao Miyazaki,Billy Wilder,Charlie Chaplin,Buster KeatonandLaurel & Hardyas you can get your hands on.Read John K’s blog and theASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive blogevery day (visit the Archiveif you’re in Southern California! ).

Read comics. Watch cartoons and classic movies.Read ‘em and watch ‘emover and overuntil you can see through the plotand into thethinkingandmechanicsandconstructionof the work.

Don’t forget tohave funalong the way!”

-Sherm Cohen (cartoonsnap.blogspot.com)