Here’s a swell find for budding cartoonists (courtesy of Dirk). Disney animator Walt Stanchfield used to teach life-drawing classes at the Disney studios, and created a number of useful handouts for his students. Animation Meat has the first 65 handouts up in .pdf form, but Leo Brodie has gone one better. He’s taken the bulk of those handouts and transformed them into a book, entitled “Gesture Drawing for Animation.” He explains why:
As I was reading the notes and trying to absorb as much as I could, I thought I might understand them better if it were all laid out in sequence, with basic topics followed by more complex ideas. I wanted to see his ideas grouped by subject so I could compare the ideas. In other words, I wanted the topics to be arranged like a normal book. So I’ve re-arranged bits and pieces from the handouts into cohesive chapters, while taking the liberty to eliminate redundancy and make minor edits just as book editor would.
Whether you’re interested in animation or not, either version is worth checking out.
