It disappoints me when people don't take the time to actually draw real people or things, even if it looks bad. To understand the structure of everything is key to creating great art, and cartoons. Some of the greatest artists use references such as Da Vinci and Bob Ross. At one point, Bob Ross had criticized his painting instructors for their interests in abstract art, stating, "They’d tell you what makes a tree, but they wouldn’t tell you how to paint a tree." Even Disney animations, with all of their cartoons and cartoonish designs, are still built on references from what they have observed, and they constantly go back to observing the same thing over and over again, because they know that their memories are not enough to create life on a silver screen.
This animator has set up a mirror to capture the expressions of a cartoon character. He is using his face as a basis for expression and emotion.
If that isn't enough, during the filming of Bambi, they brought in a live deer to study from!
These guys were dedicated to capturing the most realistic and most believable characters as possible, and that doesn't mean that they were creating a photorealistic cartoon. It's quite the opposite. They needed characters that could jump around and express feelings in the loudest way possible, without drawing freakin' noodle arms. But despite this, all of their work have been based on reality. Before they even begin to create an art style, they drew realistic figures not to make it the most realistic drawing ever created, but to capture the flow and movement and the anatomy and the proportions of the figure. And when that art style is created, people can point out what the eye is, where the hands are, what the character is doing and what he feels. That's how a drawing should be. If a normal person cannot comprehend or understand what he or she is looking at, or is being given the wrong message that the character is trying to convey with their audience, then that drawing is a failure.
