Animation Techniques, Part II

   Practicing. Character models being honed in on. It's not enough to have talent if you don't have technique. I've got skills, but I clearly don't know how to use them. Talent is application of technique. I think I heard someone say recently. Within a few months. Other//half could be up and running within a few years. (I bring this up because it could be sooner, but I doubt anyone's going to care before then. I mean, really, I could start it today. You can start your own webcomic today! ComicPress for WordPress free download! Technology is amazing!) So, we build up our cred first. One project at a time. You have to space these things out, give them time to grow naturally. Take breaks. So, one project at a time, with breaks in between in which you can work on other projects? Other projects. Wasn't I editing Persistence of Memory? It's August now. Only three months left till NaNoWriMo. Should have it then.

   I've been reading a lot of animation technique books lately. I talked about Ollie and Frank yesterday. Today's examples come from Preston Blair's excellent Walter Foster-series books on animation (I know!). I spoke yesterday of technique differences between cartoon art and animation techniques. Even in the realms of non-animation, there's still some good technique tricks and a lot you can learn from it. Action lines, silhouettes, framing of subjects, body types that speak about what kind of archetype the character is.

   For movement (in this case posing of movement) to be fluid and believable there has to be a "line of action" running down the length of the figure's body. This line flows through the pose and binds the movement together into one continuous idea of action.

   Action and character has to be clear through the silhouette of the figure. If you have someone, say, writing a letter, you have to draw that in profile, meaning not with the pencil (or pen or quill or whatever) hunched up in front of their frame. If it's not in profile like that, it's not immediately clear what's going on, and the impact is lost.

   There's many other techniques to be learned. It's kind of overwhelming at first. They say learn one thing at a time, master it, move onto something else. This requires a sort of methodical patience, but, if you have the ability to always surprise yourself, you'll see results soon enough.