A Deconstruction

I am learning to see the world through an artist's eyes. Years ago, I had found a gorgeous piece of Final Fantasy IV fan art once that I chose as my desktop. After gazing at it for quite awhile, I eventually noticed that the girl's feet were far too small for the rest of her body. These days, I think I would be able to spot it immediately. How can I improve my own drawings unless I learn to look for these things?

Jak's garage, like many, contains various artifacts and products that time has forgotten. Since he was, up until recently, a smoker, we spent a lot of time out there. There's a Disney cookie container that was re-purposed for storage of who knows what that I must have looked at dozens of times by now, but for whatever reason this time, I really looked at it.

The beauty of Disney characters is that they are designed to be really easy to draw. Animation pretty much requires this since whole teams draw these characters over and over again with only slight movements in each drawing. And of course when we're talking about a franchise as long running as Disney, artists are going to come and go. They need to guarantee that you're still going to recognize Mickey no matter what. However, the artist still needs to understand things like composition, proportions, and how people and animals move in order to draw effectively.

I'm amazed that whoever designed this cookie jar even kept his job, let alone that this design got approved and sent out the door.

If you look at the images quickly, you'll see that they show Mickey, Pluto and Donald playing with a Frisbee. There are three images total that show different states of their game, almost like a mini-animation or comic strip. The order of the three characters always remains the same: Mickey, Pluto, Donald. But let's take a closer look, shall we?


Here we see Mickey doing the classic bull fighting technique to Pluto with the Frisbee. "Toro! Toro!"


Poor Pluto. Not only is this whole game just a way to tease him, but his left front leg has clearly been dislocated. I've never seen a dog that can raise its arm that high up, have you? To make matters worse, his back legs seem to be stuck in a bent position.


Donald seems to be under the impression that they are playing football, because he's in a classic linebacker pose.


The only way to properly distinguish which of Mickey's arms is which here is by looking at those hash marks on his gloves and realizing that means we're looking at the back of his hands, and then going by thumb position. Add to it his horizontal orientation and the strange way both of his feet are now turned up, and all I can think of when I see this image is that Mickey's head must be spinning 'round and 'round and 'round.. I can hear his demented laugh right now.


What on earth is going on with Pluto's mouth here? His bottom jaw seems to be completely resting against his chest. I think the reason that Pluto and Goofy are treated differently is that Pluto is actually half dog half rubber tree.


Oh no! The bones in Donald's legs have turned to jelly! And the Frisbee has changed colors!


I believe Mickey's position here is meant to suggest that he's just thrown the Frisbee. If anyone can figure out exactly how you would end up in this position after throwing a Frisbee in a completely straight arch, I would really appreciate if you would take some video of yourself to show me how it's done.

Pluto's collar has changed from blue to white. I think the poor thing has now decided to start crawling on his front legs only since those back ones are still locked.

Donald shows us the proper way to catch a Frisbee. Always make sure to lift a leg along with your arm and make the peace sign with the other hand.


I hope you didn't mind this little diversion from my normal posts. I've decided I've been taking this blog a little too seriously lately and I might as well show my silly side. :)