Forum posts by pinkparrot

Hi,

I'm an animator.
I describe what I do as a combination of physics, anatomy, drawing skills, and acting. Learning anatomy and drawing is essential and, like animation itself, seems to be a life long study! The book Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton is one of my favorite anatomy books I've found so far. He goes over gesture, construction, skeletal and muscular systems, and technique. Ultimately, we want to be able to create poses from our imagination, and I think his approach is a great tool for that.

There are other good anatomy books out there for artists, but that's my favorite. Joe Weatherly's The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals has a similar approach, but of course for animals.
As a side note, I also recommend the Drawn to Life books by Walt Stanchfield for animation. They're essentially Disney drawing and animation lectures! And of course, The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams is a must have for actual animation techniques.

Anyways, back to drawing!
Personally, when I set out to draw I start with a scratch page of just drawing circles. This helps warm up my hand/eye coordination, as well as encouraging myself to drawing from my shoulder and not just my wrist.
I start with 20 second figure drawings. You can show a lot of action/emotion in a 20 second drawing, and its a great way to build up your skills of seeing balance (where is the figure's weight and where are his feet to support it?) as well as seeing the line of action through the whole body.
Do a variety of times during your drawing session- long poses are good for really thinking about correct proportions and how the muscles are working under the skin.
I would say aim for more emphasis on gesture and construction drawing, rather than rendering (shading) your work. You actually learn more during the gesture/construction stages than you do when you're polishing a drawing. Of course, rendering is quite fun and it's totally okay to do it! But what's most important is that learning process.

And I absolutely agree that drawing from life is essential. I have a membership to the local zoo and I try to go there fairly often. I draw both people and animals when I'm there. Always bring your sketchbook with you where ever you go. Standing in line somewhere? Look at people and draw them. Are they standing with more weight on one foot? How does that look in a drawing? Etc etc.

Learning how to draw is sort of a cyclical process. Sketch from life. Go home, try to draw from memory what you were drawing. Where do you need to improve? Study the subject's anatomy- Google skeletons, measure proportions. Draw some more, go draw from life, and so on.

Learning never really ends. You'll never really have a day where you 'get there' and don't need to study anymore. I personally really like that- there's always something to learn, always something to improve on, always something new to make. It takes time, dedication, passion, and all the other stuff E.M. Samuels said!

Are you planning on going to college to study animation?
If not, maybe consider taking some online classes. Schoolism has some great drawing courses that look fairly affordable. Animationmentor and animschool seem to be pretty popular for animation courses- but they're more pricey. Aaron Blaise at creatureartteacher.com has some affordable courses as well.
Look for local figure drawing salons as well! I did a couple when I lived in San Francisco.

But even if you're not in a position to go to school/pay that much, draw draw draw!