W E E K T W O
DISNEY TUTORIAL
Our friends over at Love Our Crazy Life have asked some of their blogging friends (like me) to participate in a Blogging Challenge. So for four weeks in April, on every Monday morning, I will be covering a different Disney-related topic. You can click the link above to find all of the other participants and their entries. Enjoy!
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Learn to Draw Mickey Mouse & Friends
A Book Review
This great how-to book was published by Walter Foster in 2015 and was written by David Gerstein and illustrated by John Loter and the Disney storybook artists. If you’ve ever wanted to draw your favorite Disney characters for yourself, this book is for you!
There are three main character designs featured as the book takes us on a journey through the decades. Early, or vintage. Classic. And Contemporary, or modern.
Early designs feature the look of the characters in the 1920’s.
Long-billed Donald Duck, primary shapes
Classic designs cover the years of the 1930’s to the 1980’s or so.
Beanstock Mickey, roughed in
Contemporary designs feature the Disney characters as they appear today.
Daisy Duck, full rendering
The book also contains an Animation Timeline, Film Facts, the Inside Story for Disney’s most famous characters, and lots of drawing tips.
At 130 pages, this book is easy to read because it is mostly pictures, in keeping with the how-to theme. To conclude, here is the 6-step process for drawing the full body of Classic Mickey:
And… it’s just that simple!
This is a great book for the closet-animators among us. I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars. However, I thought the 6-step system was too minimal for someone to really learn how to draw a Disney character. More on the reasons for each step would have been nice. For example, every lesson starts with a basic shape featuring a guide line. Some explanation of why these shapes are used, and what a guide line is and why it is important, might have enabled a beginner to later draw these characters without having to look at the book, and copy.
Who would you like to draw?
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Donald Duck is who I’d like to draw. And have, on occasion.
He is fun to draw for sure! My favorite is Goofy. Thanks for commenting!
Donald Duck is who I’d like to draw. And have, on occasion.