Resources: Life Drawing

--> Life Drawing Online <--

 

Just click the link above to get started!

 

Lifedrawing is the number one discipline to practice for ANY illustrator or animator. It teaches you observation, perspective, weight, lighting.... The benefits are plenty. I really urge all of you to attempt lifedrawing at least a couple of times every week.

 

The link above takes you to a site which will give you a full lifedrawing class in the form of an image slideshow in which you are given a limited time to sketch each figure before a new one is show. You can customise the length and content of the class before you start, and tailor it to you.

 

 



 

 

Joanna Quinn is an animator who gets actors/actresses to act out her stories, and makes her keyframes from the lifedrawings she does of them.

 

 

Get going!

-India

Pixilation

An animation technique that utilises real world people, locations, and objects, using a camera to capture action frame by frame.

The most physical way to animate, there is so much that you can do with Pixilation. It's a great thing to play with!

Because all you need is yourself and a camera, it's frequently practiced by students and indie film makers who don't have the affordances of a massive budget.

Here's a fun example!



And here is another, much more refined example.



Note how the animator/actors have used exaggerated, cartoony poses, expressions, and timing. Why not? I think it works extremely well in this medium, as capturing very realistic movement like this is difficult, and begs the question 'why not just film it then?'.

What kind of timing will you use in your animation?

Animation Charts

Gorgeous design work here from Rokosketch.blogspot.com! Checkout the values and the textural contrast between the sharp cliff edges and the soft clouds and interior snow brushwork.

Also, for those animators (and indeed illustrators!) who STILL aren't following Andreas Deja's blog over at andreasdeja.blogspot.com, you're doing yourself a disservice.

He recently posted up some more of Milt Kahl's work from the Aristocats:
Check out his animation chart on the 'hand with cigar' that he has left for his inbetweener. I believe that the other chart is for his head. We can all read this now, though - we know that his hand will have a nice slow in and slow out on it.

Milt used charts all the time. His draftsmanship really is something to behold.

-India