Read in top to bottom order

I've posted these in reverse so you can read them in order as you scroll down from the top.

Step 1 Tracing the structure.

It would be foolish to sit down and try to draw a character without first understanding it's srutcture. So the first step is to overlay John k's drawings with layout paper and draw the structure on top. I know..tracing may seem like cheating, but this is the best and easiest way to figure out the structure of a character.

George's head structire seems hard to understand at first. The closed mouth normal face george is based off a ball shape. So I'm going with that one. My assumption is all the rest are just squash/stretch versions of that.


His body seems like a sack of Potaotoes to me .He also seems to have bigger upper body, but at times the weight distribituion changes that.
He looks like he would be really fun to animate.

Step 2 Structure Drawing and Notes.

Before taking on the difficult task of drawing John's character it was important to me to get a feel for the how the structure works. It's one thing to be able to copy a drawing and another tobe able to draw it on your own.
So I did some rough drawings making notes and getting feel for the way this guy moves. I also watched that Man's best friend cartoon again.




Weight distribution seems key in the way this guy moves. He seems to talk with his body.









In the sktech below I noted how the head shape changes and all the features stretch accordingly.







These sketches are pretty rough, but it's pretty much how I draw when I draw rough animation key poses.

Step 3 Freehand Drawing

I start by drawing the structure. This is made easier and less intimidating by the fact that I've already studied it and done some practice sketches. I didn't use any traced structure drawings. At this point I throw those out and start from scratch freehand drawing.





I've decided to scan each step so I can see my progress.
My rough looks pretty good so I continue.











Everything looks pretty good so I do a tighter drawing on top with graphite.

Step 4 Comparison

Now the tough part. Comparing my drawing to John's
I've layered his original in red to make it easier to see,
I notice the head is too tall. as well as some other misses.
Time to fire up the animation disk.

Step 5 Correction

I lay fresh piece of animation paper on top of my drawing and make corrections based on my observations.
It would be waste of time to compleletley redraw this when I can use the backlight on my animation disk to make changes.

Step 6 Inking

My new corrected drawing looks pretty good so I ink it using a brush pen.
I make corrections even as I ink it. All the time looking over at John's original as a reference.

Step 7 Final Comparison

As a final step I compare my inked drawing to John's.
I missed in few areas, but overall not a bad drawing. Now I feel like calling up the Art instruction Schools on tv and trying to draw Binky.

More George Drawings

These looked good until I comapared them to John's originals.
the biggest thing I've noticed is i seem to be making the body a little too big.

George Liquor Golf

At this point I want to see if i've learned anything, so i test myself by drawing a new pose. i took one of my rough sketches and reworked it.
He reminds me of a guy that played golf in front of me and my dad one day. This guy was a real hothead. he walked 150 yards back up the fairway cussing out & threatening some high school kids, until me & my 6ft 4 dad walked over then he Immediatly turned around and walked away.
Anyway hope I've learned something about the construction of George,

Liquor From memory

I drew this during my daughters softball game to see how much I remebered and learned about drawing this character. I had no reference to work with only what I had learned from drawing him beforehand,