Why Animators Need a Good Silhouette

One of the most important things that an animator needs to get right is to learn how to create great poses. Part of this is learning how to create a great silhouette, one that reads clearly. 

The image on the left is taken from Eric Goldberg's book "Character Animation Crash Course", a copy of which we have in the library, one of the best books on character animation.

Eric shows how a single pose can get an instant "read" from the audience. Even though the images are shown blacked out in silhouette, we still know exactly what the character is thinking and doing.

Always make sure your poses, whether drawn or digital, communicate exactly what the character is thinking, feeling and doing. 

Planning Animation
The key to successful animation is to plan it properly. This means doing rough thumbnail sketches to plan out your work. Thumbnail sketches show the key poses in the shot, which correspond to the "accents" within the lines of dialogue. To see some examples of how to use thumbnail sketches to plan a dialogue shot, follow these links:

Medusa Thumbnails by Milt Kahl
Why thumbnail sketches need facial expressions
Thumbnail sketches by Pixar's Victor Navone
Thumbnailing Mrs Copperbottom from "Robots"
Thumbnailing "Boog" from "Open Season"

To see how to block out a pantomime animation shot, read this blog post.

To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our next classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.