Gesture Drawing For Animation
Chapter 6: Pushing the Gesture...............................................................................
In cartoon animation we often push the gestures so far they become a caricature. We need
to not only capture our first impression, but perhaps even push it a little further.
Any of you who have used live action in animation know the devastating effects of
copying and tracing. I have seen scenes where the Photostats had been practically traced,
and the scene was lifeless. One of the reasons for this is that live action actors do not
move from extreme to extreme as animation characters do. Studying live action clips will
reveal that many actors mince through their parts like a cloud changing shapes in a
breezy sky. Often though, actors are used whose gestures are broad and crisp, making the
animators' job much easier.
What is acceptable for live action becomes bland, vapid and uninteresting when traced
into line. Here is where your ability to understand and draw gestures really hits pay dirt.
There has to be an appropriate interpretation and restatement into a cartoon style. The
term “caricature” pretty well explains the transformation. In class, you should strive for a
release from the live-action-ness of the model and extract from it, not what it is, but what
it is doing—the same as you would while sitting at an animation desk working on a
scene.
Here is a photograph of a chap picking up a box. The drawing next to it is a tracing, while
the rest of the sketches were done (albeit, crudely), to demonstrate how slightly
caricaturing the action can bring out different nuances of the pose without drastically
changing the original pose. A Mickey and a Goofy were added also to show a possible
application of such a pose in a scene of animation.