Draw Through to Emphasize Roundness and Depth

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=348561855290743

Storyboarding Tips

In his blog, Seven Camels, the storyboard artist Mark Kennedy gives some tips about directing the viewer's point of focus when developing story. Often, a story sketch will be on screen for a second of screen time (or less) and it is vitally important that the viewer grasps the meaning of what you are trying to say in an instant. So a big part of doing this is knowing how to get the viewer's eye go where you want them to look and not focus on the unimportant parts of the sketch.

'For our first example, I did a quick, crummy drawing of a guy taking a picture of a bird in a forest. I did this sketch with two objects of interest (the guy and the bird), which, by the way, is a big "no no" when you're doing story sketch. One of the cardinal rules of story sketch is that you should only have one idea presented at a time. Each new idea needs a new sketch. Otherwise, the audience is confused and doesn't know where to look.'

Adding detail to an area of a drawing can help draw the viewer's eye to that area of the picture.

The eye will always be drawn to the area of greatest contrast first. The maximum amount of contrast possible in any drawing or painting is absolute black against absolute white. If there's an area with black against white in a picture, the eye will always go there first.

Anything in the frame that contrasts everything else in the frame will do

Just because you create a shot like the one above, and it works as a story sketch, it doesn't mean that it works as a film frame. Once the film is finished, the whole frame will be in full color and the trick above will be useless. If it's important that the audience focus on the man in brown, you have to insert a close up of him first…or start close on him and pull back to this wide shot…or something else that does the job of telling the audience to focus on him.

Perspective is always an easy way. If you have strong lines created by the vanishing point of your drawing, use that to point to what we're supposed to be focusing on. Draw everything in a composition to point where you want it to point in order to get the viewer to look at what's important.

Use line weight to minimize confusion and enhance readability.

Consider the lighting when you're boarding a scene, and what will be possible and impossible.

Depending on the mood you're trying to achieve, a harsh contrasty light might be best (for example, in a scary or dynamic action scene) or a soft, gauzy light might be better (for a romantic or lighter type of moment). All these things should be considered by the storyboard artist as they think about a scene.

Glen Keane Design Notes (Rephrased by Shiyoon Kim)

'Some great quotes from Bill Moore, famous design teacher at Chouinard, establishing a great way of approaching and studying shapes' - Shiyoon Kim. All above taken from Kim's Tumblr : shiyoonkim.tumblr.com/

Drawing Tips: Tapering in Body Shapes

'The skin closet to the the joints such as the elbow, wrist, and ankle are some examples where the shapes taper in. the rest of the anatomy could very in almost any kind of shape depending on the person'

'Tapering shapes will help any drawing or sketch. This is deceptively simple but a good one to remember. It's enemy is symmetrical shapes and parallel lines'

Source: http://drawingsfromamexican.blogspot.ca/2010/04/tapering-body-shapes.html

Screen Direction and Position: Framing

Drawing Tips: Normand Lemay

 

'A lot of times, asymmetry will bring energy and movement to a pose or composition. More specifically, I feel like breaking the symmetry of a character’s expression is key to bring interest to it. Of course, there’s always a situation where there’s a need for symmetry. On top of my head, I can think of depicting a character who has an authority role, or the “undefeated champion of something”, or the “cold stone killer”, etc. So, a symmetrical facial expression usually means the character is: supremely bored, supremely confident, has no emotions, has a poker face, or is dead. Did I miss one? 

In general, it’s a great way to flesh out a character’s thought process. What is he/she thinking about? What’s their goal?'

Source: grizandnorm.tumblr.com

Drawing Tips: Rad Sechrist

Here is a (relatively small, I must say) compilation of tips and tricks for character drawing from one of Dreamworks' animators, Rad Sechrist. I Follow him on Twitter, Blogger and Tumblr (from which all the below images are). His work and instructions have certainly helped me with my own figure drawing, especially his points about 'pushing' angles and proportions which can give characters a more cartoonish look that's really suited for animation. I've been practicing these techniques whenever I sketch people now, and look for their skeleton inside their frame and to see which way they curve. radfordsechrist.tumblr.com

'short-hands for boarding'

'Some thoughts on bones. The bones are bent, but sometimes I'll use a strong straight to show tension, flexing, etc.'

Drawing Tips: Muscle Notes

Source: twitter.com/learndrawingnow/status

Drawing Tips: Fur

From cartoonbrew.tumblr.com/post :

1. Silhouette!
Use them sparingly. There’s no need to draw the fur all over. I mostly draw them when there’s a change of direction; such as elbow, knees, shoulders, top of the head… etc. Be playful with it too. Sometimes it’s nice to change directions of the hair drawing itself. It can indicate gravity.

2. Interior indication.
Be playful with it. it tells a lot on what type of hair it is. ie. short, long, coarse, … etc. You can even vary the length or clump things together. What ever it is, do NOT leave the interior blank. It will look weird.

3. Combine both.
Have fun and go crazy with it.

Drawing Tips: Fabric Tension

Source: http://isaacorloff.tumblr.com/

Here's some practice that I sketched out super roughly in PhotoShop. The top piece is sort of copying the original image, like fabric falling over a shoulder or something. The bottom is a full skirt of a dress on the ground.

Eyebrows Tutorial - Carlos Baena

• Blocks: Brows can be treated as two blocks connected. They affect each other. Shapes should be thought as a combination of BOTH brows, not each of them separately.

• Connectivity: I think of a Brow as if there is an imaginary line connecting both of them. That way, whatever on of them is doing, will affect in some way what the other one is doing. Moving just one separate eyebrow, although possible, it makes the eye area of the face somewhat disconnected.

• Anatomy: It’s important to know which muscles do what. I would highly recommend going over the book by Gary Faigin on Facial Muscles, to understand what movements are caused by which muscles. That way you are not animating parts of the eyebrows for no reason. This will help riggers as well.

• Subtlety: This is a difficult area. The eyebrows can have really tiny almost micro movements that yet say so much about what a character is thinking. Go study clips of people thinking. A good test is to study people when they are not watching or when they are not acting as that will give you a good and more realistic idea about what muscles are being used and why.

Source: www.carlosbaena.com/resource/resource_tips_brows.html