Lars Attacks!

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.

Observational thumbnails

Lars Want Chocolaaaaaate!

 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.

Balance is crucial for telling a story and making it believable

You'd better hope that's not an egg, Lars.

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?

Strength is pretty common in video games. Can you spot Ryu, Link, and Ganon?

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.