Was stumped about what to draw tonight, so I turned to a friend for suggestions.

Here’s lopsided Andy Griffith as Lonesome Rhodes in “A Face In The Crowd.” If you’ve never seen it, check it out; you’ll never look at Andy of Mayberry the same way again. Here’s a YouTube sample.

Edit:  Something was bugging me about this pic. I think it’s that I exxagerated one of his ears and not the other.  Better?

Just a little very rough animation practice. Actually, I just animated the first half of the yawn, but looped it back to the beginning, so as not to keep you in suspense.

And yes, I yawned the entire time I drew this.

Okay, disclaimer: This is another blink and you’ll miss it animation, and I didn’t even animate it myself! But I wanted to study a Bob Clampett cartoon frame by frame, and applied 15 frames of his animation to my own character.

When I was a kid I would have killed to be able to study animation frame by frame. I think Clampett cartoons are the closest to what I’m trying to achieve, and the flexibility and distortion of his characters would be impossible to do with today’s standard cutout-style animation. As you can see here, when a character in a Clampett cartoon moves, he doesn’t just float from point A to point B; in fact, within the 15 frames (about two thirds of a second), the only drawing elements I could trace over (since they don’t move or deform) were Sam’s toes.

Playing around with character ideas for my next animation; Chicky II suggested a guy eating an apple. I want him to be ridiculously excited about his fruit. Getting there.

Edit: New and improved hand.