So do you guys remember that post I did a couple weeks ago about poses? Specifically about how to use stick figures? Great! cause that will make this tutorial make more sense… plus it’ll save me time, as I don’t have alot right now.
Today’s Tutorial is also about poses. But something very specific about the poses…
STANDING VS MOVEMENT
When you boil it down, your figure will be only in one of two poses. They’ll either be stationary or moving (duh.) In my student’s work i’ve seen countless figures that SHOULD be standing still, but look like their falling. Reversly I’ve seen just as many figures that SHOULD be moving about, but they look like their just standing around lazily…
So how do you get a figure to look like their moving, or standing still? The key is the center of gravity!
“Uh… what? What the crap is that?” you may be asking yourself. Well it’s the center point of your body (or of anything really). If the top part of your body no longer is over your center of gravity, you fall. So when drawing stationary figures you want the head to be over their center of gravity. When drawing moving figures, you need their head’s off of their center…. I might be losing some of you. Lets go into some examples.
STANDING
To show someone standing still their head has to be right over their center of gravity. Now this goes for people who are sitting, laying, leaning, etc, but Just for today we’re going to do standing up. Hopefully you’ll be able to take this tutorial and figure out how sitting and leaning will work.
So where is the center of gravity? Well there are scientific ways to calculate it, but that doesn’t help us when drawing. The way to figure it out in drawing is by asking yourself: “Is the head lined up between the feet?” If you can draw a straight line down from the head, and it hits one of the feet, or lands between the feet then the head is over the center of gravity. For example:
These two figures are standing in very different positions, but their heads fall right between their feet. So these characters appear to be standing still.
You should also note that when cropping a figure so that you cannot see their feet or legs, the default interpretation of that pose is that their standing still. You don’t know if they’re over their center of gravity if you don’t know where it is, so people automatically assume they are.
MOVEMENT
Reversely you cannot effectively show someone moving unless you show their feet. Too often i seen people in comics, or other medias try to show someone running without showing their feet. And unless it’s a movie where you can show arms pumping and background changing no one is going to know your character is supposed to be moving.
Now to show movement you have to do the opposite as the standing. The head cannot be lined up between the feet. Like so:
Now whether or not they’re falling or moving under their own power is dependent on the pose of the character, but if they’re off the center off gravity they’re moving one way or another.
Energy of Movement
This is one thing I’ve really noticed alot. Even if someone is able to capture movement in the pose, they often struggle with the energy involved. If someone is sprinting, they often look like its a light jog. Or if someone was punched by a superhero it looks more like they were nudged by a medium size dog. To solve this problem you need to think about how much energy is going into the movement, and based on that determine how far off from the base your character’s head should be. The farther away from the center the more energy is being used or exerted. For example:
This figure is certainly off the center of gravity and looks like he’s falling, but it doesn’t look like he’s falling very fast or hard. In fact it looks like he could recover and straight back out. He’s not very far off the center so the energy isn’t very high. However….
This figure is very far off the center line. The energy is much higher so it looks like it’s moving alot faster, or falling with alot more force than in the previous drawing. So energy/force/speed of the movement is dependent on how far from that center line you put your character’s head.
So that’s some basics on getting movement in your poses (or lack there of, if you want your character to be standing still.) As usual I’ve barely scratched the surface so go look at real life and see how the real world works and moves, it’ll only help your art!
Tomorrow there won’t be a new Shadows of Oblivion page. (Don’t complain you got two on Monday.) I might have something else instead. I haven’t decided yet.
But in the mean time check me out around the web:
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And remember: Make Comics! Not Excuses!
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