Advise for my cartoon, background perspective

Acochran_89 · Post by **Acochran_89** » Fri May 15, 2009 6:55 pm

Hello! Ok, so my brother and I have decided to develop my Dorm Daze shorts into a more advanced project with an actual story to occupy our time over summer. Here is a link to the original shorts I made, http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... highlight=.

Ok now my problem is with the overall design. I've redesigned the characters and upgraded the background. However, I feel that in order for me to be able to make a good cartoon, the flat front view isn't going to work, especially based off my script. However, me, not being an artist what so ever, can't draw a room with perspective from scratch. I've searched for examples and found some, but I always like to get advise from you guys. So could you either A) make an example to share or B) guide me to some links that have great examples of a room with perspective.

Sorry if i'm not being clear...just let me know if there's more info you need to help.

Here are some images of the characters and the flat view of the dorm living room.

any advise would be awesome (especially from you guys/gals who have made cartoon series like mkelly and b15). I'm not looking for people to help make my cartoon, just advise on the background perspective. Again, if i need to explain more just tell me. Even as i write this, i am forseeing someone getting mad at me for me this post. I hope that doesn't happen lol.

Thanks guys

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri May 15, 2009 7:03 pm

1. You could learn perspective drawing. This will take time and eventually still don't help you.

2. You could build your room in a 3D app, then render some different views and trace them.

3. You could trace some images of suitable rooms. If you pick some screenshots from a sitcom, you will even get some standard camera angles for free.

I like your character design. There's nothing wrong with your question, I sometimes use these tricks myself because a well constructed perspective takes too much time.

Acochran_89 · Post by **Acochran_89** » Fri May 15, 2009 7:15 pm

thanks for the fast reply!

Yeah, I've been looking up a lot of screenshots from a lot of popular cartoons such as the simpsons, which contains probably one of the most famous living room couch views in cartoons today lol. I've looked into perspective drawing and have been practicing, with very questionable results lol. It's hard but i'm still trying. Thanks for the compliment on the characters. The design is based off a show that lived a very short life called "Mission Hill". I thought it would fit my cartoon well.

As for backgrounds again, i'm really lookin for that angled view, which like you said, can be learned from looking at shows on T.V. I'm not big on using 3D. This might change once my brother starts getting involved more when I go back home from school since he has had experience using 3d modeling.

Thank you for the tips Slow! I had a feeling you would be one of the first people to reply. You always seem to have a lot tips when it comes to art techniques.

(edit)
here is a pdf i found that shows the how the artists for the simpsons approach angles and views...thought it'd be interesting to share.
http://accad.osu.edu/~pgarrett/730/read ... onsway.pdf

tonyg · Post by **tonyg** » Fri May 15, 2009 9:39 pm

For image backgrounds has anybody looked at using World Creator?
Their website is not the best to understand what it is but it can be used to create Cartoon like and objects in different perspectives including

2D Platform, 2D Overhead, Isometric, (iso 3D),Pseudo3D

. I've had it for a while and tinkered but some of the stuff the more dedicated people are creating is very good... just finding the examples is difficult.

Acochran_89 · Post by **Acochran_89** » Fri May 15, 2009 10:18 pm

no but i'll certainly look into it

dueyftw · Post by **dueyftw** » Sat May 16, 2009 2:41 am

I just played around with World creator. Be very handy if your making side scrolling games. Not much else. There are some useful textures in the free version download.

Dale

mkelley · Post by **mkelley** » Sat May 16, 2009 12:23 pm

I've tended to use photos for references in creating such views, but I also have to admit looking very hard at existing TV shows (even including screen captures) in order to get tricky items like sofas right (hard corners like tables are fairly easy to do even if you can't draw.

Also, AS has some pretty good tools for forcing perspective -- offhand (I've been away from my computer for two days showing folks around Disney World and am a little dazed and confused right now :>) I can't remember which ones, but if you go to a vector layer and select that sofa you've done flat on (select all the points) and then try the skew or rotate tools you should be able to get a good start on making it lean to the right or the left (you will still need to draw some connecting lines, and this sort of thing is far easier done than described, but play around with it and you'll see what I mean).

Also Google Images for cartoon sofas and furniture and you can use these are references (you need to redraw them anyway to match your style, but you'll be amazed at how easy it is to do this as long as you can see the reference clearly -- it will still end up being "your own" but it will have the right lines going the right direction, etc. I do this on a dual monitor screen, but if you don't have the screen real estate you can bring it in as a layer in AS to use as a reference -- just resist the temptation to trace, because it won't match your own cartoon style then anyway).

And -- truth be told -- once I've got a sofa or stuffed chair (or almost anything I like) I reuse it like hell. Recolor it, resize it in various directions, flip it around the other way, but it ends up in many scenes and that doesn't detract at all but adds to the feeling of continuity in your universe. So don't feel like it's just that ONE sofa you're creating, but a whole warehouse full of them <g>. That makes the effort a whole lot easier.

arfa · Post by **arfa** » Sat May 16, 2009 1:59 pm

For a very quick and easy perspective outline you could try Google Sketchup. It is free and incredibly easy to use for 3D sketches - hence the name. Even the free version has some quite sophisticated features.

Save your sketch as an image and set on a background layer and trace.
You can always go back to the original Sketchup file and add a piece of furniture or whatever you may have originally forgotten.

http://sketchup.google.com

Acochran_89 · Post by **Acochran_89** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:08 am

mkelley-
Thanks. I've looked up several images from cartoons and have been using them as references and plan on taking pictures of real rooms and such to use as references. Having a references picture helps a lot when you're not really an artist. Drawing something with out a reference is not something i'm very good at lol.

arfa-
thanks for the link

dueyftw · Post by **dueyftw** » Thu May 21, 2009 8:33 am

http://www.animationforum.net/forum/sho ... php?t=3117

I recommend the first link-
http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/K9-14/draw_one.htm

And if you back up the first link-
http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/

Click on art lessons also.

Dale

etherpictures · Post by **etherpictures** » Sat May 23, 2009 9:58 pm

These are a few sets that I created a few years ago.

In the "bar" what I did was make each of the three walls in AS.
Then imported them all into one file, and then used the rotate layer tools to rotate the layers. I can then go back to the original 3 sets for closeups or whatever I need.
For the door, it's just done with an action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ef_Qi-6PJw

human · Post by **human** » Sat May 23, 2009 11:44 pm

Of the suggestions so far, I like slowtiger's option of using 3d software the best.

Everybody says Sketchup is easy, but using it is a bit quirky and it's not for everyone. It is however very powerful and very free.

What's more, you could populate your set using a ton of freebie props from 3D Warehouse in an absolute flash, so do it !!!!

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sun May 24, 2009 10:18 am

I've decided to learn Blender now. (Well, not directly today, but maybe next month.) It's free, it's as good as commercial software now, and my GF has a book "Blender for Dummies" which I plan to read. Since I have a clear goal for which purpose I want to use it, I'm pretty sure not to get lost in all those tarpits of lighting and texturing.

etherpictures · Post by **etherpictures** » Sun May 24, 2009 5:37 pm

I think the frustrating part of sketchup is the lack of a 2d interface.
I'm not so sure about blender, but it may be the same issue.

I found several other freebies. Not sure how they could be used in AS.
The city blocks look interesting.

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/free-3 ... t=382&_m=d

Another idea might be to use real photographs and use the tracer function in Adobe Illustrator.

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 7:20 am

I know this is an old thread, but I didn't notice that Simpsons storyboarding link before. It's really helpful. Thank you!