Sketch method update

This is my approach to an invented figure lately:

1. I draw the head, neck, and shoulders in a constructed way- you pretty much have to.
2. Get the sensibility lines so the pose is naturalistic.
3. Draw the big shape of the figure, as if I were trying to carve out a good outline. Its good to just use two lines to get to the waist, then two more to the knee- the silouette should be really simple.
4. When you get to the hands or feet, draw it slowly- take a pause after every line- take a lot of breathers to look at what you just put down, and see if the next finger you put down, or palm edge can PLUS it. Dont try too hard to make it a clean line- each line will be somewhat messy because you have to let each line build and explore itself in order to be expressive.
5. Add in the face, draw the hair as slowly as you would the hands.
6. Clean up slowly too. It's faster if you just clean up the hands in a continuous contour sort of way.

Establishing Shots

For me, I always find establishing shots to be one of the most difficult shots to do in storyboarding, because you have to generate viewer interest immediately and tell the story and space, without relying on your characters to do so.

The establishing shot should foreshadow what's going to happen, it should set the mood of the scene. An establishing shot is more like architecture or marketing than character acting or classic filmmaking. There should be no actual story content in an establishing shot, its just a teaser . . . I'm used to holding off the construction of an establishing shot until the very end.

And only recently, have I realized that this is probably a good habit . . . scenes are a lot like essays, they have an intro thesis rationale and summary. I feel like no writer knows what they're talking about until they've written the entire thing- and only THEN do they understand how to introduce you to what they're talking about.

Forearms & Shins

Lately Ive found you get much more accurate poses if you draw the forearms and the shins before
you draw the upper arms and the thighs, for some reason its easier to track the space that way.

I also like to construct the shoulder form nowadays as a roundish boomerang form . . .

Posing Tricks

In summary, I want to emphasize that ideally:

1. You put down lines that are contours of a form.
2. In the back of your head the form wraps around lines that have a "sensibility" of varying rigidity. Most importantly, the main line of action, which is always the centerline between the neck and the crotch.

Don't Draw Unspecific Poses

Pose priorities:

1. You HAVE to convey a specific idea. The idea must be entertaining in a way that is true to the character. The simpler the better.

Even if you make a clean nice drawing where a character is posed ambiguously, the more "animation" trained types won't be very impressed with it. Examples:

Gesture: A Dramatic Purpose

I still think that gesture is about hitting a pose clearly. Before you can even reach that point, a vital step too easily overlooked is that gesture always needs a dramatic context no matter what, or else there's no purpose to the gesture. I mean, if there's no purpose to the gesture, you might as well be drawing perfect circles and ellipses anyway (which one probably should be doing from time to time anyway).

It's important to bring dramatic context to a gesture:

1. Milt Kahl did it: he would spend a whole day just staring out in space thinking about what he's going to do before he even does it.
2. It clarifies what you're doing without being very technical about it.
3. It gives you far more control and authority over what you want to achieve.
4. I have to stress that you really have to think about the dramatic context before you even lay one line down, and you have to have dramatic context even when you draw naked figures in space.

For example, lets say I was to draw a naked guy in space, inventively, . . . what are some things I would think about:

1. What does a naked guy in space do?
Stand, in some open space, like an exhibitionist, not just stand, but he's hitting a definite artistic pose, because he knows he's being drawn. He would probably look off to the side, or up in the air, because it would be weird to look directly at people drawing you . . .

I mean these sort of thoughts help you paint a visual picture, that lets your imagination fill in the clues, as opposed to jotting off lines and letting the muscle mechanics of drawing or happy accidents do the work of drawing for you . . .

Usually, you don't even intend to draw naked people in space, and an easy way to jump into a good pose when you intend to just sketch one character is to just imagine that there's some other character there that's just not shown- NOW you're character is doing something- DRAMATIC.


The only technical things about thinking things through is you want to definitely decides the hips, knees, and head are going to be for compositional/proportional purposes. Also it helps to draw the head tilt first, that way the character has a definite state of being- because a head tilt is never generic, a tilting a head a certain way is the most specific dramatic thing a human can do- they say it does more that words can.

Another technical thing I just discovered that is really awesome is to double up your lines like this:




There's something about it that absolutely clarifies every single line that you do- it's like your first line is always bad because you're finding something out, and then your second line verifies the statement.

Convex Concave other tips

Avoid right angles in poses. Make sure one side of limbs is smaller than the side facing you.

When drawing cartoons its best to exaggerate the attachment of the head, almost as if the head is a toy ball jointed onto the neck. But it can only look this way if the shape design of the head is very solid- the shape cannot look wobbly. In fact, most of the time, the head ISNT volumetrically drawn, when you overconstruct the head you loose the graphic sense of it- most of the time, the outline of the head itself, as a shape, has solid enough qualities to be graphic and solid and the same time, without overconstructing.

And the neck is something you just have to plain get right, because it's part of the spine. If the neck is off the entire body is off. 

Especially for the arms, legs, and hands, always refer to other body parts to size it out. Always know your peak, angle, and the width of a limb cross section before executing the outlines. Keep the outer contours of the limbs convex. 

Easy cartoon ryhtym (most of the time)- outer contours- convex, inner contours- concave.

If you are going to build a line don't lift your pencil to do it, execute the line as if you're coloring a coloring book. Build your lines for  inking things like hair, eyes, and lips, because they have soft complex curves.