Solid Drawing and Poses- A Comprehensive

Solid Drawing is one of the major components in creating animation, as it refers to the skills needed to give 2D images a 3D feel. Of course, to be a good animator, you need artistic integrity-- it's often enough that years of work are built upon in an artist's lifetime to get to a final, amazing product. This week in BSSD, we will be analyzing the principle of animation called Solid Drawing as told by Jay Jackson, an animator taught by legendary Eric Larson.

In the computer age of animation, we don't need good drafters to come about a successful animation since digital enhancements allow us to continue editing to our hearts' content without damaging the piece. Jackson explains mostly from experience his way of doing things, along with tips such as how you should be spending half the time planning and half the time animating, and to not dive into animation without a clear pathway of which to walk along. In order to animate with a professional sense, the artist must be able to draw a character at any angle and take into consideration the following things; Line of Action, Weight and Balance, Twinning, Twists, Silhouette and Counterpose. All of these are mediocre at best to master alone, but in combination, they form the principles and dynamics that go into Solid Poses.

Let's tackle the most fundamental of these mini-lessons first. Twinning is, if not the most detrimental to any pose, as symmetry kills any form of life it touches. Stiffness is bound to come with symmetry and to break this you'd use the rest of these to help drive the knife deeper into the crack of lifelessness. Weight and balance go hand-in-hand as balance is dependent on weight to take form. Take into consideration your character's body type, size, and shape when animating. All these factors come together to control your character's motion, feel, expressiveness and gravity. Movement is obviously the most important thing, and being able to vividly express your characters through simple and complex motions is imperative to animation.

 Silhouettes come in handy when coming up with a clear, readable pose. Make sure when doing a dynamic pose that you can clearly get what's happening if your drawing was blacked out. If not, you end up with a flatter image than you intended. When making poses, the first thing you may want to do is draw a line. This will serve as a guide for motion direction in the pose. This is called the Line of Action and is very important to implement in any scene to promote dynasticism.

Solid drawing, to me, is extremely important to my work. I'm always trying to improve my dynamics by implementing perspective and action into animation and it helps a ton that I can conjure vivid ideas from my head to animate on the dot. If you hadn't noticed yet, I love using abstract lines and shapes to form powerful movements alongside a character's, but I plan on spending my independent study chip on combining a study of dynamic animation AND abstract shapes to music. I already ready to dive in, but it seems a bit early. This blog really helped me in pinpointing where I can improve my work. Although it's short, it's also sweet and to-the-point. Thanks, Jay Jackson.