Gesture Drawing for Animation

Observe, Observe, Observe 

Animation! This is the vehicle you have chosen to express yourself in. A whole list of "tools" are required: drawing, timing, phrasing, action, acting, pantomime, staging, imagination, observation, interpretation, logic, caricature, creativity, clarity, empathy, and so on—a mind boggling array of prerequisites. Rest at ease. You were born with all of them. Some of them may need a little sharpening, others may need to be awakened as from a deep sleep, but they are as much a part of you as arms, legs, eyes, kidneys, hemoglobin, and speech. Reading and observing are two emancipators of the dormant areas of the mind. Read the classics, biographies, humor, mysteries and comic books. Observe, observe, observe. Be like a sponge—suck up everything you can lay your eyes on. Look for the unusual, the common, characters, situations, compositions, attitudes study shapes, features, personalities, activities, details, etc. Draw ideas, not things; action, not poses; gestures not anatomical structures. I am reprinting some ruff animation drawings to remind you of the style of drawing that seems to serve the purposes of the animators best—loose and expressive.

Lead to the Emotion 

A well constructed drawing should have all the parts and they should be put together beautifully, but that is not what you should see when you look at the drawing. What you should see is the emotion. In a drawing of a starving man you should see fear and hunger and despair, and you should feel this, plus pity and revulsion and anger. All gestures won’t be quite that dramatic, but all gestures are certainly more than their parts. Do this experiment: get a wooden match and look at it. That represents your model or, character in animation. Then light it and let it burn half way. Now it represents your model or character in gesture. It has been transformed from the anatomical match into a burnt match. If you had to draw a burnt match you wouldn't say to yourself, "Okay, this is the anatomy of a match." No, you would say, "This is a match whose anatomy has been burnt and twisted into an agonizing shape. A shape that if I imagine myself being in that state—if I feel what has happened to that match has happened also to me—then this is the feeling that I have to draw, to portray." We must be emotional about our subject whether it has to do with serious matters or with humor. We cannot back off from our emotions – if we do the result will he a mere anatomical reproduction. A drawing or a scene is not final when a material representation has been made; it is final when a sensitive depiction of an emotion has been made. The significance is not in the story alone, but in the illustration that makes that story come alive. Yes, there is anatomy, form, construction, model and two or three lines of etceteras, but only in so far as those things are expressive of the story. 

Give Them the Experience 

Drawing for animation is not just copying a model onto paper; you could do that better with a camera. Drawing for animation is translating an action into drawing form so an audience can retranslate those drawings back into an experience of that action. You don’t just want to show the audience an action for them to look at it. You want to visualize an action for them to see – that is, to experience. That way you have them in your grasp, your power, and then the story can go on and the audience goes on with it, because they are involved. You have allowed them to experience it. The parts of the figure must be put together in a manner that will portray or caricature the meaning of the pose. Otherwise it will be just a drawing. What a horrible fate – to be just a drawing. Here are some animation drawings that have transcended the anatomy and model of the characters. They are good drawings, but not just drawings. 

To know more about Gesture Drawing for Animation 

Download PDF