Mickey and some birds...

I love this model sheet. So many beautiful drawings. I've attempted a few of the ducks at the bottom of the page.

Rough ducks and some cleanup.

Mickey studies.

My attempt at some "original" mickey poses.

...and John K's Donald Bastard

The proportions on this hen almost made me break my pencil in frustration. Grossly oversized tail feathers on my version....looks more like a peacock than a hen.

With the rooster, i had a tendency to flatten out the head when drawing it, so i really tried focusing on that area and feel out the forms.

Some donalds and rooster head

More practice....

I tried to push the line of action on the third pig. Not sure how succesful i was with the new pose, but i figured i'd give it a shot.


The angle on the nose of the mouse is off. His head is tilted further backwards. I really tried concentrating on the line of action and the shapes on this one.

This mickey drawing is a doozy. This is probably my 20th stab at it, and i'm not satisfied.

I liked the pose on this one. His legs are way high on my drawing.

Duck dissected

Here's the deceptively simple drawing of a dapper duck holding a cane. I noticed i had a very bad habit of trying to pull my underlying sketch here and there in order to match up the negative spaces. The results weren't pretty. I forced myself to really try and figure out what was going on with each aspect of the drawing. NOt sure how accurate my studies are, but i was surprised how much more accurate my undersketch became after really thinking about the pose.

Here's the overlay.

More construction

My attempt at breaking down a tom and jerry cover...

Progression of my bugs copy. I really love his crazy hands in the original.

Totally got the proportions wrong on the little guy. Drawing two characters interacting so closely terrifies me, so i forced myself to give it a go. Practice, practice practice......

sketch revisited plus bugs in drag

I tried breaking down one of my sketches using the construction method. Here's the results.

The original:

Second pass using construction method:

One more study i did.

Construction....

The suckage will commence shortly...

John K, being the saint that he is, has offered FREE cartoon lessons on his blog. He refers heavily to Preston Blair's book of cartooning, and wouldn't you know it, i've had that book since i was a wee one. Here's the thing: i attempted to draw a few things from it, and coldly put the book aside, never to look at it again. Decades later i've finally realized the error of my ways. Through this blog, I shall try with all my might to make amends to Mr. Blair, and cartooning in general.