04 March 2009

Drawing for Animation

I know some beginning 3d animators are not comfortable with drawing so I have decided to put this link, in case it helps anyone:
Ten Minute Drawing
Of course it does not include everything about drawing for animation planning but it may give you a very good starting point.
I have been drawing caricatures and stuff since my childhood, but because I didn't have any formal training and didn't know anything about the concepts like posing, shapes, line-o-action, force, appeal, loose and simple drawing etc during that time, my drawings weren't effective and eye pleasing as they were meant to be. So I strongly encourage anyone who is starting animation, to check out these videos or lots of materials you can find on the web, to go through the books I gave link to (I carefully selected those), to attend some drawing lectures etc. Also, for an extensive learning resource, you may visit Jason Ryan's website:
Jason Ryan's website

You may think it is unnecessary since you are going to be 3d animator but what I've observed during my animation learning is, the better you are at drawing (remember even a stick figure can work if it is thoughtfully drawn) and the more you put those concepts into your planning drawings, the better, original and creative your animations will be. Otherwise, it will probably lead to live action like (rotoscope) animation, cliche animation or bad animation unless you are a 3d animation pro for lots of years, which is probably the hardest route to become an animator.

1 comment:

Hand powered Coffee said...

Yeah, good tip. I'm just about to start at AM, and I've been watching those, they've been really helpful.

I think I always had a "but I can't draw" attitude, till I started watching vid's like these, trying out the different techniques and finding myself improving, albeit from crap to just below passable :). The thing I realised (and should have known from teaching myself guitar) is it's all about practice. The fundamentals are fairly simple, it's just the application of them that takes time to get right.