Looney Lessons
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been step-framing through my Looney Tunes DVDs, to study them for my APT work with Keith. This stuff is a gold mine! You can pick any golden age WB cartoon at random, and learn a ton from it.
Here are a few things I picked up. I’m using a clip from Clampett’s "Tortoise Wins by a Hare" as an example here.
Note: Images for educational purpose only.
LOONEY LESSON #1: DYNAMIC BALANCE
It’s great to see how far they pushed a character’s pose and line of action while still making them look balanced. Keep the hips above the feet, and the rest of the body can really be pushed out there!
LOONEY LESSON #2: RHYTHM & FLOW
Rhythm and flow are a little harder to understand and explain. It’s a deeper subject — I’m still trying to absorb these concepts. I know one thing: the following poses are just dripping with them.
There’s a graceful, almost effortless visual rhythm as your eye moves around the pose.
The feet, ears or hands are not pointing the same way — or as Keith would say, "playing the same note" — yet they work together and the pose is cohesive.
Don’t be deceived by the simplicity of this pose. All the good stuff they teach in life drawing is on display here — composition, silhouette, negative space, tension, and of course, rhythm and flow.
LOONEY LESSON #3: CONTROLLED CHAOS
In other words, controlled movement. When you’re trying to pull off a crazy, over-the-top movement, anchor some part of the pose to avoid turning your animation into noise. Of course, the part that’s moving around still needs to have good spacing and arcs, but limiting the movement on part of the character helps a lot. Here’s an unusual and brilliant example: The anchored parts (the feet) aren’t on the ground — it’s quite the opposite.
There’s a lot more to learn from these old classics. I’m just beginning to scratch the surface, and I highly recommend this sort of study! Now that some of these cartoons are available on the iTunes store for a buck a piece, it’s great because you can study the clips at 24 fps and see the original timing. You don’t even have to leave the comfort of your computer.*
*Although seriously, do leave the comfort of your computer from time to time. Try it. Get up and move around. Now. This blog will still be here when you get back 
Awesome observations. That note on anchored chaos is really good. Dynamic balance is probably best observed in motion because while it may appear that a character is almost off balance in any one still frame, in the context of the larger motion the principle really holds up well and you can see the solidity of the balance.
Good stuff!
Thanks, Keith!
You’re absolutely right about the dynamic balance. I should have mentioned that in the pose I grabbed above, he’s just about to start walking. He maintains that extreme line of action throughout the walk, pretty much like Groucho Marx.
The cool thing about the Groucho walk as Bugs Bunny does it, however, is that his torso squashes and stretches with each step even as it stays level.