ARTICLE RESPONSE 2/10/18

            The study of real poses and anatomy has been ingrained in artist for centuries, the most famous examples being ancient Greek statues. When you view such sculptures and art, it's hard to deny how lifelike they really can seem. This is due to the certain posing, style, and view of the ye old artistry. Solid Drawing, a principle in the 12 principles of animation, is another reminder to keep posing and realism somewhat involved. Flat characters, too much symmetrical features, and lack of weight and proportion can really send a dent into any animators-- 3D or not, work. Jay Jackson, in his article, "Solid Drawing" delves deeper into tricks and tips into bringing your drawings to life, and helping to better plan out your animations using these techniques of dimensional art.


            Jackson Jay discussing in depth the importance of utilizing art skills, even if you swear off all 2D animation. Of course, Jay isn't requiring you to become Picasso, rather give the sage advice of studying varied bodies and learning how weight works in coordination to movement. It will only make you a better animator if you can do a quick plan-out sketch of the action, so when rigging or figuring out timing, it's much easier to decide where the weight will fall. Learning proper body proportions is more to "recognize natural poses and to study how bones, muscles, and fat work together with gravity to form dynamic poses" (Jay). Furthermore, his mentor, legendary Disney animator Eric Larson, stressed that he should spend "half of his time planning, and the other half drawing" (Larson). Preparing and story boarding out every interaction can help keep consistency, and be a good reminder to keep physics in check with stylistic features. To illustrate this further, Jay uses his own thumbnail drawings to show how he mapped the motion and timing, segwaying into our next brilliant topic.


            Line of action. A line of action "illustrates the force of the action, unifies the pose, and makes a clear statement." (Jay). This is a phrase often used in comics, different illustrations, and 2D animations, but it sure does apply to 3D as well! It's important to keep a clear, focused direction on where your character is headed, to lead the eyes in a pleasing manner. Jay gives vivid examples of this through an image of "The Little Mermaid", where Sebastian is extending his claw. Another extremely important factor that Jay reminds us of, is 'twinning' when creating these solid poses. As we all know, flat designs are much less appealing than 3D, posed and varied-in-sizing illustrations. It just brings a different feeling to the character, a vibe in a way. Twists should be used when available, (but not overdone!) making the body turn in a certain way to show more depth of the character. One more tip that Jay gives us novice creators is to trust in "counterposing", a method of turning the head and tilting the shoulders in the opposite direction! This balances the character, and gives him a more equal weight disposition.

            Now, I was unaware of the art of counterposing. That was quite new, however I have expressed this art use before! I just was unaware of the word for it. The importance of line of action is also more clear to me, as I now see it isn't only for illustrations or 2D animation. If I had the chance to go back and fix a bit of my class competition, I think I would make a more clear line of action next time! Another factor I enjoyed was the credibility and brevity of this article, it wasn't too drawn out and got straight to the point! An extremely fantastic choice to show the importance of solid drawing in 2D and 3D animation.

            Solid Drawing in the 'Twelve Principles of Animation', can be seen as something tedious and unnecessary in actual animation. How could a still frame help when it comes to moving pictures? Jackson Jay proves the importance by showing his credible tips and tricks on how to utilize solid drawing in planning out drawings, keeping a concise movement, and posing to equally distribute weight among a character! These tips both help 3D and 2D animators, and should be kept in mind when working diligently at art and animation.