In the early years, the artists from all cultures developed their own rules of perspective to depicting their illusion. All of them were based on observations of nature and experiences of life. In China there was Scattered Perspectives of landscape painting. With the sight moving on, a long scroll may have multiple vanishing points stretching…

30 second life drawing is like warming up of the athlete. It can be drawn simply, using loose lines, not aiming for accuracy but movement. I am generally used to capturing the shape, however such rough and quick portrayals also provides me with a new perspective. I find it harder to do 2- or 3-minute…

NOTES MISSION STATEMENT Mission statement is the theme of the story. It is why you make this film, and what you want to leave the audience with. Usually, we divide a big topic into small points for a film story. Take the animation anthology series Love, Death ＆ Robots as an example. Nearly every episode…

NOTES Early in the world’s first animation film with sound, lip sync involved in the character animation. We were all deeply impressed by the shot of Mickey Mouse whistling in the Steamboat Wille. Remember: lip sync animation is NOT only animating the mouth. Dialogue occurs along with body language and facial expressions. We animate to…

ACTION The main action tells the story of the pose. So start with deciding what catches your eyes in the first place. DYNAMIC Rythm and tension of the body bring the character to life. WEIGHT Whether a pose is established or not depends on where (which leg) the weight is put on.

notes Facial expressions are the ultimate demonstration of our emotions. Facial acting is usually a reaction or a result of the outside world, so it is closely related to the situation in which the character is placed. At the same time, it reflect the character’s inside world, their thinking and feelings. The basic emotions: •Happy…

NOTES Animation acting has more in common with theatrical acting than live action film acting. Theatrical acting is always exaggerated on the basis of life experiences and makes it easier for audiences to get the characters. The same rule also works on virtual characters. In previous research, I found it interesting that both Western and…

NOTES Long time ago I’ve heard that quadruped walk was difficult to handle. Luckily we had real cute puppies to be our models. The life drawing was a chill but cheerful experience — the enthusiastic dogs warmed our hearts. Live drawing makes it easy to quickly capture the dog’s dynamics and physical features. Through the…