John K on Life Drawing for Animation (An alternative perspective)

Legendary Animator John Kricfalusi, the mind behind the cult classic Ren and Stimpy is a vocal advocate of animators taking life drawing classes, however unlike a lot of the legendary Golden-era Disney Animators, John K takes issue with the fact that many animation schools see the two disciplines as 'mutually exclusive artforms'. On his blog Kricfalusi argues that skills gained from attending life drawing classes can be beneficial if they are applied to 'cartoon drawing', however he sees animation as having a separate visual vocabulary to traditional figure drawing. 

This hypothesis is certainly the case in Kricfalusi's own work, with it's cartoonishly exaggerated proportions and characters which in the case of Ren and Stimpy, often injects animal characters with more human characteristics for comic effect. However, Kricfalusi has been known to use observational drawing as a part of his process, as he describes on his blog...

'When I do cartoons of real celebrities, I start by doing regular caricatures - semi- realistic ones to analyze the structure and specifics of the individual, Then I try to simplify that into animateable shapes.'

-John Kricfalusi on Life Drawing in Animation

John K semi-observational drawing of Bjork

John K is very much an advocate of bridging life-drawing with caricature, simplifying semi-realistic caricatures into more animatable characters. He says that it is important to 'let the subject of the caricature influence you' and not impose your style upon the model. In the mid-90s, Kricfalusi animated a music video for Bjork and details on his blog the process in which he went about creating the animated Bjork.

Character Sheet by John K developed from observational drawing

'Bjork is pretty, but not at all in a generic way. She is so amazingly unique that you can't take your eyes off her. The way she looks, the way she moves, her expressions, her timing, her singing are pure charisma. This is great inspiration for cartoon characters. In the end, we are looking to animate charismatic characters, not stock genericism. Aren't we?'

-John Kricfalusi on caricaturising Bjork