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This assignment was our most challenging yet! This week, we studied model sheets of Anne-Marie, a.k.a. "Squeaker", from Don Bluth's own All Dogs Go to Heaven. The first half of the assignment was simple enough: copy five head drawings and two full-body drawings of the character to the letter. (If I'm not mistaken, the original head drawings are by John Pomeroy, and the full-body originals are by Bluth himself.) Nothing we haven't done before.

The second half was where it got interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word: draw your own five head drawings and two full-body drawings of Anne-Marie. We were given a list of emotions we could draw, but we weren't limited to them.

My copies came out alright. The "cheeky" one is a little squished, but otherwise, I think I did a decent job of capturing Bluth's and Pomeroy's original drawings. Now, if only I could say the same for my original drawings! A lot of that was my own fault, admittedly; I spent so much time on the copies that I didn't leave myself much time for the really difficult stuff. It shows.

Some of these drawings came out decently. They're all pretty squished, but they convey the emotions I was trying to convey, even if the puzzled and annoyed ones look a little too similar.

Unfortunately, two of them are just plain ugly. "Scheming" was on our list of suggested emotions; I thought that'd be a fun one to do, given how innocent Anne-Marie is in the actual movie. (Maybe some of Charlie's bad behavior rubbed off on her!) It came out pretty badly, though, and for a very specific reason: the eyes are off. Even if the drawing is otherwise good, it'll fall apart if the eyes are messed up. It's like Glen Keane says: "If you're going to make a mistake, don't make it in the eyes."

The "fancy-free" pose might be the most hideous thing I've ever drawn. I was trying to make her like Maria from The Sound of Music, but it just came out so awkward. I was so embarrassed handing in something so amateurish, but a deadline's a deadline.

Before we started the assignment, D.B. even mentioned that a lot of the artists who worked on this film had trouble drawing her; I think this assignment was his way of telling us, "If you can draw this character that even people who've worked for me had trouble with, you can do anything." I thought my (admittedly limited) experience drawing the Disney heroines would make this assignment a little easier, but it's still hard. If this week taught me anything, it's that I need to study construction and the human figure a LOT more. There's a real science to this that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of yet.

Anne-Marie belongs to MGM/UA. I only own these drawings.

Check out the rest of my Don Bluth University homework here.

Description

This assignment was our most challenging yet! This week, we studied model sheets of Anne-Marie, a.k.a. "Squeaker", from Don Bluth's own All Dogs Go to Heaven. The first half of the assignment was simple enough: copy five head drawings and two full-body drawings of the character to the letter. (If I'm not mistaken, the original head drawings are by John Pomeroy, and the full-body originals are by Bluth himself.) Nothing we haven't done before.

The second half was where it got interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word: draw your own five head drawings and two full-body drawings of Anne-Marie. We were given a list of emotions we could draw, but we weren't limited to them.

My copies came out alright. The "cheeky" one is a little squished, but otherwise, I think I did a decent job of capturing Bluth's and Pomeroy's original drawings. Now, if only I could say the same for my original drawings! A lot of that was my own fault, admittedly; I spent so much time on the copies that I didn't leave myself much time for the really difficult stuff. It shows.

Some of these drawings came out decently. They're all pretty squished, but they convey the emotions I was trying to convey, even if the puzzled and annoyed ones look a little too similar.

Unfortunately, two of them are just plain ugly. "Scheming" was on our list of suggested emotions; I thought that'd be a fun one to do, given how innocent Anne-Marie is in the actual movie. (Maybe some of Charlie's bad behavior rubbed off on her!) It came out pretty badly, though, and for a very specific reason: the eyes are off. Even if the drawing is otherwise good, it'll fall apart if the eyes are messed up. It's like Glen Keane says: "If you're going to make a mistake, don't make it in the eyes."

The "fancy-free" pose might be the most hideous thing I've ever drawn. I was trying to make her like Maria from The Sound of Music, but it just came out so awkward. I was so embarrassed handing in something so amateurish, but a deadline's a deadline.

Before we started the assignment, D.B. even mentioned that a lot of the artists who worked on this film had trouble drawing her; I think this assignment was his way of telling us, "If you can draw this character that even people who've worked for me had trouble with, you can do anything." I thought my (admittedly limited) experience drawing the Disney heroines would make this assignment a little easier, but it's still hard. If this week taught me anything, it's that I need to study construction and the human figure a LOT more. There's a real science to this that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of yet.

Anne-Marie belongs to MGM/UA. I only own these drawings.

Check out the rest of my Don Bluth University homework here.