July Snapshot #1
Added 2021-07-02 09:26:50 +0000 UTCGreetings and merry July to you all! This is more of a filler week as I'm between projects and the current ongoing ones need a little more development before I can reveal interesting screenshots. Soooo, having saved this for a rainy day I thought I would share with you a less talked about but crucially important aspect of being a traditional animator.
Life drawing!
Having a solid and fundamental understanding of surface, form, perspective and shape can really improve your execution methods when animating various pieces. I make it a point to cover a pretty broad variety of subjects (although, more often than not, they're usually people.) This is a difficult practice to undertake for most draftsman because its often not something you would share with anyone. Its strictly a self-reflection of your own skills and an observation on how you can improve. Being a creative, being our own worst critics is actually pretty useful when reflecting on what you can do through drafting. Through this self-evaluation one's overall work can generally improve in a big way - hence why this aspect of anatomical studies can be so important.
For the sake of time and content I've curated roughly a dozen images for you to check out. This is just a small sample size, since normally my library contains hundreds of drafts from each week's work. This collection can convey to you the variety of things I observe and sketch out, things like: physical structures of toddlers, male & female anatomy, animals, sometimes hands and feet, perspective, cloth & items that interact with the subject, so on and so fourth.
I make it a point to keep pushing the limits of what I can explore especially when I'm working on any one animated project. Doing the research to properly animate characters and subjects that would feel right in the flow of things. Usually drafting isn't seen as important for computer animators or sculptors but I often think it helps in looking at the movement/anatomy tandem from a different perspective. For a classical animator it is a fundamental skill to develop.
