Coming along

I haven't actually forgotten about Red Hot Riding Hood, I swear.

The more I work with Tex Avery's lines, the more I love them. They're so fluid yet so firm and complex. I think I've finally nailed what I like so much about later, more advanced cartoons in comparison to early Betty Boop: the solidity of the base character.

Unlike early Betty, the character changed from frame to frame, but had little consistency. Throughout a cartoon, her appearance and proportions would change drastically. There was no firm base off of which distortions and flexing would occur. Unlike later cartoons, where there is a very solid basic character design, and while that design can flex, curve, stretch, and distort to any degree the animator wants, that basic design and proportions is always kept in mind and the character, after the distortion occurs, always falls back to it. It's like the non-energetic resting point of the character's design. When energy, action, and emotion are required, distortion is used. The base design can be anything, too. It can be bizarre and malformed, but it must be solid.

Look at the two different takes on cats in A Tale of Two Kitties, which starred the Abbot and Costello spoofs Babbit and Catstello. It also introduced the character of Tweety, who I've always hated. Regardless, both characters are solid, but flexible. Babbit is all arms and legs, and Catstello shouldn't have enough room for bones in his appendages, but that's the wonder of cartoons.