Context of Practise 3: Research Post 2

 Context of Practise 3
Research Post 2 - Drawn to Life and Animated Performance

• This week:
• I made notes on the books "Drawn to Life" Volumes 1 and 2, by Walt Stanchfield and also "Animated Performance" by Nancy Beiman.
• What Went Well:
• From Drawn to Life Volume One, Walt Stanchfield talks a lot about the importance of Gesture Drawing. He explains that this is where we "acquaint ourselves with [body language] symbols." He further goes on to mention that, "we learn how to manipulate the figure to evoke certain emotional or psychological responses." I understand this to mean that the line of action and initial silhouette/pose of the character should be enough to convey personality and mood, without needing the character to speak or move. This details the importance of gesture drawing to fully understand the body language we convey, to give insight into our thought processes.
• Therefore, I decided to start with gesture drawing, as practise of this. I used the website LineofAction.com, which provides online figures to draw from.
• Here are the studies I made:

• "Animated Performance" by Nancy Beiman explains personality and acting in animation from a more technical stand-point, rather than psychological. She is in agreement with Walt, as she explains that, "Line of action creates personality," however she also goes onto explain, "personality and attitude expressed through the key poses create acting." One book that further explains the technical aspect of drawing acting and personality for animation is "Character Animation Crash Course" by Eric Goldberg, which I shall be looking at later this week.
• Here are the notes from "Drawn to Life" Volumes 1 and 2, and "Animated Performance":

• What Could Be Improved:
• I need to consider making my gesture drawings more fluid, but also ways in-which they flow into character designing and appeal. I need to start designing some characters next week and possible explore the "malleability" of a character to express body language.
• Next week:
• I will be creating an essay structure and starting some practical work.