Animator profile

Winsor McCay
Winsor McCay (1869-1964) is a great animator, who usually is considerate as a father of the animation, after his masterpiece of Little Nemo released in 1911. His cartoons are considerate as very good even nowadays; Winsor McCay obviously had a talent for creating characters and of course the stories. [Popova, 2011] The Winsor McCay animations were unique, because he was performing together with animation. Gertie the dinosaur is one of the best examples of him performing while showing animation. The animation were shown in the cinemas and theatres as well. [animation.filmtv.ucla.edu, unknown]

Figure 1

Winsor McCay, who started his career drawing cartoon strips, was born in 1986 in Canada, However grew in Michigan, USA. At the age of 13 he drew a picture of shipwreck on the school blackboard and it was photographed and copies sold. His

attention to (and memory of) detail was amazing. Winsor McCay, the boy, loved to draw and was very good at it. However despite, his talent, W. McCay was enrolled to the business school by his father. But at age 38 he started to draw his first cartoon strips of Little Nemo, which later on grown into amazing animated cartoon movie.[bpib.com, unknown]. McCay animated his films almost single-handed; from inception to execution each cartoon was his and his alone. [digitalmediafx.com, unknown] Winsor McCay used to spent about a year on a five minutes long animation, that shows how passionate about animated cartoons W.McCay was. However, he was not capable to make fulllength movies alone, so the animation studio was established. [digitalmediafix.com, unknown]

If you arent familiar with the principles of perspective and try to get that with your eye, you waste a lot of gray matter in nervous strain. Once you grasp the points of perspective, the rest is clear sailing. Ask yourself, From what vantage point will I view the thing I am about to draw? Any ordinary artist with an active imagination can learn to draw cartoons by first mastering perspective lines, forms and shadows.

When you draw the picture of a man standing on the ground, let him be on the ground, not somewhere up in the air. When you draw a building or a locomotive, make it look like what its supposed to represent. You need a sixth sense a sense of substance which tells you, for instance, that a well constructed table stands firmly on the floor with all four legs; its top does not jut into the air like a slidingboard. [McCay, unknown] And McCay was absolutely brilliant at visualizing objects and characters. All object were on the ground and looked indeed persuading.

Figure 3

Even drawing in black and white McCoy was absolutely brilliant at drawing textures and shadings. [look at figure 4]

Figure 4

Bibliography
Popova, Maria, 2011, [online] http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/06/30/winsor-mccay-little-nemo-firstanimation-1911/ [accessed 21/03/2012] Animation.filmtv.ucla.edu, unknown [online] http://animation.filmtv.ucla.edu/NewSite/WebPages/Histories.html [accessed 21/03/2012] Digitalmediafx.com, unknown, [online] http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/animationhistory.html [accessed 21/03/2012] Bpid.com, unknown, [online] http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm [accessed 21/03/2012]

List of Illustrations
Figures 1, 3, 4 hoodedutilitarian.com, 2011 [online] http://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/03/strange-windows-a-master-at-the-dawn/ [accessed 21/03/2012] Figure 2, Bpid.com, unknown, [online] http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm [accessed 21/03/2012]