In this summary, I will be evaluating on my work made in this
unit. During my course, I have been learning the different areas for drawing in
animation. The main areas have included perspective drawing, life drawing,
still life and character design.
My supposed strength, when drawing, would have
to be character design, as I have grown fonder of hand-drawn characters in
animation, and I use to find this to be an easier and enjoyable part of drawing
before I attended this course. While I knew a few basic ideas on how to draw a
character before, I later learned to improve on this skill, and how to get a
better understanding in character design. I have learned to use a method called
the line of action, which helps me to draw a character pose and understand how
the movement would work for a cartoon character to act. One of the tasks we
made was to examine any person by how they were positioned and what they
were/would be doing. The line of action method was also useful to this task, as
it helped me get the right angle of movement to imitating someone onto the
drawing, for example, someone looking down and being distracted by their phone.
It has also helped me to improve on drawing the facial expressions of the characters,
like where the eyes need to be positioned. Learning more about this has helped
me to develop more in my skills on this form of drawing in animation.
Another section we covered was life drawing, in which we had to examine
something more clearly, and draw onto a sheet of paper. The main thing we had
to focus on is what we were viewing it from. This meant we had to focus on the
anatomy of the person, but also look at where this person was positioned at,
and at what angle we were viewing from. We also had to include the pedestals he
would be leaning on and what other objects were showing from our view. The most
challenging part for me was trying to draw in a much detail needed for the
body, and where the light would not be showing. At first, this was hard to
make, but I eventually managed to get a good eye view of what was I drawing,
from position to scale and angle. This would also be something to look back on
for me, when drawing in character design or just a simple caricature/drawing of
someone. After getting more used to this form of drawing, I will consider
practising again so I can be more comfortable with drawing what and where I am
viewing it from, while also giving as much detail required for it.
One part of drawing I felt unsure of was trying to draw from a
perspective view. This was like life drawing, in which you had to draw what you
were viewing, but you also had to focus on what was being viewed in the foreground
and in the background. This was practically like drawing an entire piece of
scenery. At first, I thought this was okay as I understood where I would be
viewing this scene to draw, but I did find the tasks a little difficult to make
at the start. My attempts at drawing a large structure or landscape were not quite
scaled and also unbalanced, especially when using straight lines at the
beginning. I was able to manage and improve on more perspective drawings later
on, when we went round to different areas outside the college. I was able to get
a better understanding on how draw from what I would view, and even learned to
improve on making straight lines, with the help of a useful piece of material. I
would definitely need to consider trying more on perspective drawing, as I was not
positive of drawing anything relating to background imagery and felt that
drawing a background scene would have been my weakest skill when drawing in
animation.
Drawing in 3D would also be a weaker skill for me. Some of my observational
drawings show how much I could not do correctly in drawing what I was looking
at. While the tasks were simply drawing as many different toys we chose and
viewed from, I only managed to get the drawings to work well if they were in a
side, front or rear view. Some attempts that I made, in which I had viewed them
in a different angle, were noticeably poor due to the lines being a little more
curved than straight lines, and some of them not aligned with each other, which
made the shape of the object I drew not at the right scale. I would need to
improve more on drawing 3D objects, as opposed to drawing in 2D. I need to look
at this as I learned from the perspective drawing, which is that I must try to
examine it in my own point of view. Then, I would have a better idea on how to
improve on where the lines would be angled at, to develop a better structure on
the object that I am looking at in my view and would be trying to draw.
This was also a problem for me when attempting at some still life
drawings. This was hard to try, not only by drawing what I was viewing from,
but also trying to give as much detail I could see. My worst example was when I
attempted to draw a pinecone. Because the pinecone had many different sections
pointing out in various angles and directions, I found it very difficult to
draw in the exact angles the lines would be. There is also a very huge amount
of detail which I think is missing, but this was due to the difficulty of
trying to look at the pinecone and drawing what I could envision. While some of
the other objects I covered in still life were a little better, some of the
detailing is not entirely there or not aligned properly. I really should
consider looking back at this, look at what other important structures were
needed for this and how I can improve more on this subject properly. I feel
that maybe this could also be better for me, once I have learned more and have also
developed a better understanding on how one should draw a still life image.
In my conclusion, I have felt that many of these drawing
techniques were quite easy to understand, but I was not entirely comfortable
with them at the start. Although I have felt more comfortable with drawing in
character design, I see that I need to learn more and develop a better skill in
in the other departments, particularly when drawing something in 3D or in still
life.
