When asked to think of good examples of figure drawing in animation, the first name to come to mind was Joanna Quinn. Although there is often a degree of exaggeration to her animations, particularly the more comedic 'Girls Night Out' there is a strong understanding of life drawing and human anatomy which acts as a solid foundation for further characterisation.
While watching clips of Quinn's way of working, what stood out to me is that she always has a mirror beside her, so that she can act of the poses and facial expressions before she begin to draw, and continually returns to the mirror for reference. This corresponds with the belief that animators are actors as well as artists, and need to have a good comprehension of body language and how action can communicate with an audience.
What Quinn observes in this clip, about quickly capturing the movement before finalising the image, resonates with our own life drawing task. Rather than being allowed time to draw a detailed figure, we have been given the bare minimum of time to capture the essence and gesture of a pose, which I can see is an important skill in order to imbue animated characters with energy, vivacity and spontaneity.
Quinn's pencil lines contribute to the quality of her life drawings, as although the result is slightly sketchy, there is a natural flow to the forms that she draws, which leads to lovely, fluid motion in the final films. This is particularly noticeable in several of her animations, where the characters change form; in Britannia a bulldog morphs into Queen Victoria, in The Wife of Bath a hag to a young woman, and in Body Beautiful Beryl's body becomes skinny, fat, tall and muscular in celebration of each.
While watching clips of Quinn's way of working, what stood out to me is that she always has a mirror beside her, so that she can act of the poses and facial expressions before she begin to draw, and continually returns to the mirror for reference. This corresponds with the belief that animators are actors as well as artists, and need to have a good comprehension of body language and how action can communicate with an audience.
What Quinn observes in this clip, about quickly capturing the movement before finalising the image, resonates with our own life drawing task. Rather than being allowed time to draw a detailed figure, we have been given the bare minimum of time to capture the essence and gesture of a pose, which I can see is an important skill in order to imbue animated characters with energy, vivacity and spontaneity.
Quinn's pencil lines contribute to the quality of her life drawings, as although the result is slightly sketchy, there is a natural flow to the forms that she draws, which leads to lovely, fluid motion in the final films. This is particularly noticeable in several of her animations, where the characters change form; in Britannia a bulldog morphs into Queen Victoria, in The Wife of Bath a hag to a young woman, and in Body Beautiful Beryl's body becomes skinny, fat, tall and muscular in celebration of each.
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