Friday, July 2, 2010

Aversion to Knee Caps??

For whatever reason, it seems Dave Tendlar did not like to draw Popeye's knee caps. Many drawings do have them, but generally speaking, most of them are missing that part of the anatomy. Unlike his fellow animators, Tendlar would streamline the shapes of the legs instead of drawing them like the model in segmented sections. The following clip of his animation from The Man on the Flying Trapeze is a great example of this particular drawing earmark.



Some other examples from posted clips -



2 comments:

Daniel [oeconomist.com] said...

I've long held that there is a strong correlation between the over-all quality of Popeye cartoons and how closely his legs conformed to the original model. As the legs become shorter, more streamlined, and more fluid, the cartoons go to Hell. (I wouldn't claim that there was causation from the legs here, and thus wouldn't blame Tendlar for the decline.)

Jack G. said...

Appreciate you pointing out the "earmarks" of Tendlar.

I find that stuff very interesting.