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OVERVIEW
Level: BEGINNER |
Key poses are our ‘story telling’ frames. The stronger the key pose, the clearer your animation will be. Using our friend the flour sack, we’re going to practice conveying attitudes and emotions purely with the body, as this is the foundation for creating stronger, clearer character animation.
INTRODUCTION TO KEY POSES
To me, the real magic of character animation isn’t just about making things move in a goofy way. It’s about presenting characters who think and feel and live such that they inspire deep pathos in the audience. This is a tall order for any animator. However, using well thought out key poses significantly helps us to achieve this.
Key poses are responsible for carrying much of the emotional weight of an animation. Better key poses convey stronger emotional intent from the character. The stronger the emotional intent, the clearer the story and the greater the sense of pathos inspired in the audience.
And it’s not just animators that benefit from stronger poses. Character designers will see a significant improvement in the communication of a characters personality which is important when selling your character to a director as well as the audience.
So what makes a better key pose?
For an indepth answer to this question, watch the video above. However, outlined below for those short on time, I’ve distilled it down to 4 importants points. Use the points below as a checklist to compare your their poses against. Making sure your poses are strong in each area will instantly improve your work.
KEY POSE CHECKLIST
LINE OF ACTION
This line of action is always the first place to start when constructing a pose. All poses need a clear direction of force running through them. It’s what the whole pose hangs on. A clear line of action is important because it gives so much more dynamism and attitude to your pose. The line of action is in all great poses but if you’re not used to using it, it can be hard to see especially with complex character designs. Practice seeing and using lines of action on simple characters like the magic carpet from Aladdin:
You can get just as much character and force with simple characters as complex characters, but for beginners, it’s much easier to practice on simple characters. That’s why the flour sack is such a great tool to use when you first start out on your animation or character design journey.
Try to keep the line of action to single curves. Complex ‘S’ lines of action dilute the energy and result in weaker poses. Look for single arcs only!
EXAGGERATION
Exaggeration is at the heart of any great animation and character design. It’s the caricature of reality. So once you’ve found your line of action – exaggerate and push it! In this case, bigger is better!. If the character is sad, make him SUPER sad. If he is worried, make him knee-quiveringly terrified. It’s much easier to pull back from an extreme pose than it is to significantly ‘up’ the intensity of the pose once all the clothes, details, expression etc have been rendered. Take a look at the super exaggerated poses of the magic carpet below. They just ooze emotion and with out any facial details, we know what the carpet is feeling:
Now take a look at our flour sack below. Compare the mild suggestion of a look in the first pose (resulting from a mild, forceless line of action) to the charismatic high energy second pose. The line of action in the second has been pushed, loaded with more energy and is full of tension. When this line of action is dressed with the physicality of the flour sack, the resulting pose inherits this energy and feels full of life and theatricality. The result leaves no doubt in the audience as to his intention and emotional state. In both cases below, it also helps to lead the eye toward the point of interest.
TWISTS
Twists add drama and interest to a pose. Simply, if you have the hips and torso facing in different directions, you create a wonderful torsion dynamic pose. It’s like a spring being coiled, it’s just full of energy waiting to be unleased, and tangibly feels as such. Take a look at some simple twists we’ve added to the flour sack below:
It’s not always required to have as much twist as depicted above. However, offsetting the hips and torso even in small amounts will create a naturalism and appeal to your poses. Look for any opportunity, how ever slight, into your poses and see instant improvements in your work.
SILHOUETTE
The final thing after observing all of the above is to check the silhouette. If the pose can be read purely from the silhouette, without relying on any internal details, then it’s going to be a winning pose! Having poses work in silhouette is crucial to understanding the pose, especially when the character has got loads of internal shape complexity such as the pattern on the carpet, facial features or complex clothing and props. Again, by practicing silhouettes with simple characters is a great introduction to this concept. As such, check out some of these magic carpet silhouettes below:
As you can see, the silhouette is super clear and is such that, in one static image, we can clearly see what he is doing and even the intensity of the emotion. Extending this to our flour sack, we can begin checking the success of our poses by looking at the silhouette. See below for some weak and strong silhouettes using our flour sack:
A similar example can be seen below. Both are valid drawings, but it’s clear which comunicates in silhouette and hence which is the better choice for a key pose:
Communicating emotion and attitude in silhouette is the platform for a strong pose. A sad expression for example that is not backed up with an equally sad silhouEtte is a weak pose. If you can master this, then adding the expression and other details will only enhance an already clear attitude. Checking the silhouette is your secret weapon in achieving great poses!
SUMMARY
As an animators and character designers, we’re looking to present appealing characters that entertain an audience. Strong key poses are one of the greatest tools in your toolbox to help in achieving this. Well thought out key poses are important in communicating more emotional intent and clearer story telling in just one, dynamic pose. Consequently, this will yield greater enjoyment from the audience which is really what we’re all after.
When creating key poses, make sure that the character scores highly in all 4 areas. Line of Action, Exaggeration, Twists and Silhouette. If it does, you will undoubtedly see a significant improvement in the strength of your key poses and consequently the quality of your work.
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