Week two. Now it begins!
If you’re not used to sketching… well… better get used to it! Sketching is the fastest and easiest way to get an idea down on paper. Something which you’ll need to do as animation is a long process, and it can be easy to lose track of the original idea as time goes on.
Harry Partridge has a great video on sketching poses and goes over the line of action with some example drawings. He’s also a lot of fun.
The Proko channel has a lot of amazing information on gesture drawing, and drawing in general. I can’t vouch for their premium content as I haven’t signed up. But if it’s half as good as what is put out freely it would be totally worth it! For instance this video:
If you are laying bricks, and you are very careful to lay one brick after another after another after another. You’re so careful, and you do hundreds of bricks. You’re going to step back and you’re going to see that they wobbled all over.
The solution is to get a string with chalk on it and just snap it down so you’ve got a long straight line. Then you can be almost reckless with the placement of those bricks. You’re going to step back and they’re all going to come together in a long straight line.
Remember it’s not about the finer details (let the computer worry about those). Focus on simple shapes, perspective, avoiding twinning, negative space and fitting the body into the line of action. … Oh yeah, and emotion you’re trying to portray. :P
Short clip demonstrating the effect of angles. Not important to know, but a nice little nugget of mind-thought regardless.
Good luck and get sketching!
