Solid Drawing
Jaden McGrath 2/8/19
Well, it looks like it is time once again to discuss one of the 12 Basic Principles of Animation. And this time, we will be discussing the concept of Solid Drawing. Basically solid drawing is the ability to render a 3-D animated character in a 2-D animated space where you give it depth, balance, and weight. You have to be able to draw a character from any angle if you want to make the animation convincing. You shouldn't have your goal be to make a beautiful drawing, but instead have the goal to train your eye to recognize natural poses and study how muscles, fat, and bones work together with gravity to form dynamic poses. For example, when Jay Johnson who is a famous animator began work on Disney's The Fox and the Hound, his mentor Eric Larson stressed to him that he should spend half of his time planning it all out and spend the other half of the time. He also told him to not start animating until all of his planning was done and he knew exactly what he wanted to do in the animation.
The fastest possible way to plan out a scene is to use thumbnail drawings. Thumbnail drawings are small exploratory drawings where you are able to work out the staging and poses of your characters. You will be able to do quite a few thumbnails in about the same time it takes to work out one single good pose in MAYA. When Jay Johnson were working on the sketches for the animated film Cat's Don't Dance, he started by making what looked like stick figures. He would then go back and would both clarify and exaggerate over them. He would then repeat that process until it got to the point where he felt like he had a strong concept for the scene.
When drawing your thumbnails, there are a few aspects to consider when doing so. For example, using a strong line of action going through the whole body of your character will illustrate the force of action and unifies the pose your character is making. There is also the weight and balance of your character. Make sure that your character has balance and isn't close to falling over. Next is twinning where it is best to avoid any symmetry in your poses. When you are creating a pose for your character, it is usually a good idea to begin with the pelvis and hips of the character which rotate the torso. There is also silhouettes where a good silhouette can help views be able to instantly understand a pose. Next is twist where twisting the body will give more interest and more dimension of your pose. And finally with counterpose, when the character's hips tilt in one direction, your character's shoulders tend to tilt in the other direction.
Just like all of the other articles talking about one of the 12 Basic Principles of Animation, I found myself enjoying the article itself. I don't why, but I always end up reading these articles and doing these blogs on them. I ended up learning quite a bit from this article like for example, I learned that making thumbnail drawings can help plan out a scene just as much as storyboards can. I also learned about the different aspects of making thumbnail drawings. Two very important things to know when making poses for my characters.
I don't have any questions for this article, but at this point I don't think that is much of a surprise to anyone. These articles always tend to answer my questions as I read it, so by the end I don't really have any to ask anymore. I also agree with the article completely but then again I don't really think that is a surprise either. These articles are quite well written and judging by how the people writing these articles are professionals, I have a feeling that they know more about it then I do. This topic is important when it comes to animation because it helps plan out the animation and how the animation will turn out once it is all completely done.
Well, it looks like it is time once again to discuss one of the 12 Basic Principles of Animation. And this time, we will be discussing the concept of Solid Drawing. Basically solid drawing is the ability to render a 3-D animated character in a 2-D animated space where you give it depth, balance, and weight. You have to be able to draw a character from any angle if you want to make the animation convincing. You shouldn't have your goal be to make a beautiful drawing, but instead have the goal to train your eye to recognize natural poses and study how muscles, fat, and bones work together with gravity to form dynamic poses. For example, when Jay Johnson who is a famous animator began work on Disney's The Fox and the Hound, his mentor Eric Larson stressed to him that he should spend half of his time planning it all out and spend the other half of the time. He also told him to not start animating until all of his planning was done and he knew exactly what he wanted to do in the animation.
The fastest possible way to plan out a scene is to use thumbnail drawings. Thumbnail drawings are small exploratory drawings where you are able to work out the staging and poses of your characters. You will be able to do quite a few thumbnails in about the same time it takes to work out one single good pose in MAYA. When Jay Johnson were working on the sketches for the animated film Cat's Don't Dance, he started by making what looked like stick figures. He would then go back and would both clarify and exaggerate over them. He would then repeat that process until it got to the point where he felt like he had a strong concept for the scene.
When drawing your thumbnails, there are a few aspects to consider when doing so. For example, using a strong line of action going through the whole body of your character will illustrate the force of action and unifies the pose your character is making. There is also the weight and balance of your character. Make sure that your character has balance and isn't close to falling over. Next is twinning where it is best to avoid any symmetry in your poses. When you are creating a pose for your character, it is usually a good idea to begin with the pelvis and hips of the character which rotate the torso. There is also silhouettes where a good silhouette can help views be able to instantly understand a pose. Next is twist where twisting the body will give more interest and more dimension of your pose. And finally with counterpose, when the character's hips tilt in one direction, your character's shoulders tend to tilt in the other direction.
Just like all of the other articles talking about one of the 12 Basic Principles of Animation, I found myself enjoying the article itself. I don't why, but I always end up reading these articles and doing these blogs on them. I ended up learning quite a bit from this article like for example, I learned that making thumbnail drawings can help plan out a scene just as much as storyboards can. I also learned about the different aspects of making thumbnail drawings. Two very important things to know when making poses for my characters.
I don't have any questions for this article, but at this point I don't think that is much of a surprise to anyone. These articles always tend to answer my questions as I read it, so by the end I don't really have any to ask anymore. I also agree with the article completely but then again I don't really think that is a surprise either. These articles are quite well written and judging by how the people writing these articles are professionals, I have a feeling that they know more about it then I do. This topic is important when it comes to animation because it helps plan out the animation and how the animation will turn out once it is all completely done.
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