For my (Acting for Animation) ANI 300's first assignment, we were told to spend an hour doing observational sketching, 'emotion' sketching, and 'balance' sketching. Once we had done a few pages of thumbnails, we make the ones we liked best presentable, and then take a pre-rigged model of 'Lars' and pose him in our favorite sketch. It's a great little way to get ready for really acting out a scene and seeing how far you can push things in a sketch.
For my observational drawing, I was lucky enough to witness a little child throw a temper tantrum at the local grocery store. His defiance and desire to yell at Mommy for not getting a candy bar struck a solid pose, and I decided to see how Lars looked when he didn't get his way.
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| Observational thumbnails |
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| Lars Want Chocolaaaaaate! | |
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For the 'Balance' sketches, I managed to come out with a
decent smattering of interesting sketches of figures posing on
precarious perches, but the package predicament persuaded me to pursue
the power of posing Lars in perilous poise. Perfect.
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| Balance is crucial for telling a story and making it believable |
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| You'd better hope that's not an egg, Lars. |
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I really think the 'Strength' poses were easiest. There's plenty of reference in a lot of video game characters and designs, but I wanted to vary things up with some sports and other ideas. I eventually settled on the 'Iron Cross' pose that's apparently quite popular in gymnastics... now just how long can poor Lars hold out in that pose?
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| Strength is pretty common in video games. Can you spot Ryu, Link, and Ganon? |
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| Yeah. I got this... urgh... saywhenIcanleggoplease... |
It might be a minor nightmare to actually rig up a model with the same mechanical precision that Lars has been. There's a lot of confusing code hidden under that marshmallow exterior, but perhaps one day I'll be able to puzzle it all out.
