Figure Sketching

A great quote from the introduction of an inexpensive book I'm starting to read that touched me:

No matter how rough a sketch, how poor its technique, or how weak its composition: if it is not alive, it is a failure. In drawing there is design, technique, and life, and the greatest of these is life.

Your aim must be to make a drawing life-like. This does not necessitate a lot of finnicky detail; in fact the most life-like drawings are the simplest and least finished.

It is the artist who can draw vitality who commands the highest price for his work, and how is this quality of life to be attained? By going direct to life, that is to say, making your sketches from the living personalities around you.

Do not let your desire to render a pretty drawing swamp the importance of retaining the essential life and character of your subject.

Figure Sketching for Beginners / Len Doust / 0486450953

Storyboards From Film Class

The Basic Film and Video Production class that I was taking ended last month. Our final project involved the whole class with the instructor assigning a film production role to each person. The instructor was the executive producer and then classmates filled roles such as screenwriter, director, editor and so on. There were about 15 of us in the class so each of us had a role. I volunteered to be the storyboard artist. The story is a comedy about a person who takes diving "lessons" from a unqualified scuba shop employee. I didn't receive much guidance from the director while creating the boards so I just followed the script and tried to "direct" it myself. In review, I see that some of the drawings imply a higher camera angle than I meant them to. Below are some of the storyboards:

I'm again hearing the siren song of animation in the form of a character that a co-worker has asked me to animate. This is going to be a single character that will be composited into a short, live-action film that he is working on. I'm really looking forward to working on this. The character design (already done) is simple, something straight out of Samurai Jack.