Introduction:
In the last assignment, you animated a drink box having emotion through its display of emotion and timing. It’s now time to move to complex characters and build upon what you had learned in the last exercise. Before we animate these characters, we have to spend some time “Pre-Planning”. In the development of this curriculum, I interviewed many animators in the industry and the most common piece of advice that all of them gave you (the upcoming animator) was to spend time planning what you are about to animate.
This next exercise is to help you with the “pre-planning” needed to create a successful animation in the next two upcoming assignments and it will require a little bit of life drawing.
In the above illustration, what emotion is being displayed. What is the model doing? The fact that you can recognize what the model in the drawing is doing is what we want. In this assignment, you will be creating lifedrawings that convey an emotion. After they are completed, we will transfer them to our CG character.
Assignment Description:
Create 6 – 8 loose gestural lifedrawings where it is clear what emotions and actions are being displayed. You may work from a life model, photos of lifedrawing model, scour images on the internet (be sure the emotion is clear in these), or research old movies starring Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, or newer movies starring Johnny Depp and pause the movie to see a particular frame and pose. Draw this pose in this fashion.
Save these drawings for you next assignment, good luck and have fun!
Competencies:
By the end of this exercise, the student should be able to:
- Demonstrate how lifedrawing can portray specific emotions and poses.
- Demonstrate gesture drawing.
- Demonstrate line of action.
Gesture Lifedrawing Process:
Tips:
In teaching this exercise and in sitting in classes where this basic exercise is critiqued, I found common mistakes among students, they are listed here so that you can watch out for them.
Don’t make up the drawing out of your head. It will be easier and you will draw faster if you have photo reference.
In teaching this exercise and in sitting in classes where this basic exercise is critiqued, I found common mistakes among students, they are listed here so that you can watch out for them.
Don’t make up the drawing out of your head. It will be easier and you will draw faster if you have photo reference.
- Exaggerate, see how far you can push the pose. This takes some imagination and some risk taking, but the drawing inevitably turns out to be more interesting this way.
- Exaggerate the emotions so that the idea of the emotion is clear.
- Work fast.
- Do many drawings. I’m only recommending you complete 6 – 8 good drawings.
- Sometimes you may have a drawing that is not strong, or is unclear. Keep drawing until you have 6 – 8 solid drawings that convey emotion.
- Clear silhouettes : Be sure your pose drawing is clear in silhouette form.
- Keep your drawings small so you can do more of them. They should be roughly the size of your hand. The larger the drawing, the more paper you need to cover, which in turn may slow you down.
