A lot of cartoonists tend not to see space. We see fills or
positive spaces. Areas of interest to us are eyes, mouths, ears,
arms, fingers, but we sometimes neglect the big spaces between
the fills. And those negative spaces are needed. I've noticed
when students are copying drawings from Preston Blair or old
cartoons, or even life drawing there is a tendency to shrink the
open spaces. On a 3/4 angle, you see more space behind the eye
that's close to you than the one that's farther away. Chuck
Jones is a master of balancing fills with space. And of using
contrasting shapes. He doesn't pile balls on balls, yet he uses
all the classic 40s animation principles. In this earlier model
sheet of the bird you can tell the WB artists are just trying to
get the basic principles down and it looks more like balls on
balls. Chuck's more interesting individual style developed after
he got confident of his principles. Then he stopped piling up
balls. Many cartoonists today (including me, when I'm not
thinking about it) draw