Meeting Overview, 11/13/11

Hey guys! Here's what happened at our meeting on Friday:

Tom Richner came in and talked a bit about drawing for animation, gestures and improv. Here's his bio from the CCAD website:

"Thomas Richner, assistant professor, Animation and Graduate Studies, teaches animation and time-based media. He specializes in traditional, hand-drawn animation. His professional work includes layout artist and timer on "The Simpsons" for six seasons. In additional to producing his own short films, which have screened at festivals around the U.S., he continues to work with animation industry professionals in Hollywood to develop and pitch animated properties primarily for television. He also is a consultant for EA Games. BFA, Denison University; MFA, UCLA."

His blog can be found here.

We focused on gesture drawing (various lengths and poses), and also had fun drawing to music/music videos. We looked at some classic animated show intros from Retro Junk. It was a great time! Here are some notes taken during the drawing session:

- EXAGGERATE your poses: bend the knees more, twist the body more. Animation is all about exaggeration, so the more you stretch your poses in the gesture stage, the more fluid your drawings will be.
- Try building your figure out of shapes such as spheres and cylinders so you can see how the body is constructed.
- Be aware of the camera angle and placement. Are you looking up? Down? Head on? All of your lines should serve to define your camera angle.
- A good exercise: study your pose, and then draw it from the opposite angle: a full 180 degree flip.
- Pixelovely is a GREAT tool for gesture drawing.
- Take mental snapshots. Study your pose for 10 to 15 seconds, then look down and try to redraw from memory. Don't look up!
- Look at a pose and draw it with one of your characters in place.
- Always have a mirror next to you! It helps so much for capturing expressions and poses.


- Bethany also gave a fantastic tutorial on hands and how to draw them. See the post below for detailed notes!

Some Animation Collective reminders:

- Portfolio Reviews are coming up! If you signed up at one of our past meetings, we'll let you know about the details soon. The reviews will be either the 2nd or 9th of December.

- The Animation Collective will be doing a Secret Santa exchange for the holidays! At our next meeting (November 18th) we'll have everyone write their name and their favourite animated character on a slip of paper. We'll mix 'em up and hand 'em out and then we'll all draw our own version of the character we get on an Artist Trading Card. At our December 9th meeting (the last one of the semester, oh noooo) we'll exchange them! :)

- Our Bake Sale is next week! November 14th - 18th, from 11am to 12pm in the entryway of Design Square Apartments. BRING BAKED GOODS! We need as many as we can!

See you next week!