Posing is one of the three main building blocks of animation, aside from timing and spacing, and it is very important to create readable, clear poses. This post will help you strengthen your posing skills and apply them to your animation.
Good posing comes down to several key points. Keep in mind these are general guidelines and not hard and fast rules. These will give you a basis from which to start from, and once you understand them, you will know when to break them.
1. Line of Action
The line of action is an imaginary line running through the character's body, which comes in the form of a C or S shaped curve. It typically runs through the character's spine and helps to describe the motion of the pose. The purpose of this is to make your poses more dynamic. You character's pose will automatically have more force and attitude if they don't have a straight line of action running through their body.
You can apply this to your sketches by creating a rough line of action that you want your pose to follow and fitting the pose to that. The video below is what helped me to really understand and apply this concept, so I definitely recommend checking it out. (It's part of a several video series, and if you have a chance, take a look at the other ones too!) It can also be helpful to look at other poses and practice drawing the line of action through them, to get a sense of how it's used. With enough practice, you'll eventually be able to draw a pose with a good line of action without having to draw a curved line first.
View the whole playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB5nUgozRxF-ak_GHT1_z9qrZ0Cp5ZTJi
2. Silhouette
When creating a pose, it's important that it has a clear silhouette. What I mean by this is that if you filled in every part of your character's body black, would you be able to tell what was happening? This is especially important in animation because each pose is only on screen for 1/24 of a second, so we need to do everything we can to make sure the pose is clear and readable by the audience. The Jiminy Cricket poses are a good example of this. You can instantly see that pose A has a very clear silhouette, due to the fact that the arms and legs are clear from the rest of the body.
3. Contrapposto
Contrapposto is an Italian term that we use to refer to contrasting angles in the hips and shoulders. This is a great way to get an instant line of action through your character, and it is also the foundation of weight. When weight is shifted from one leg to another, the hips and shoulders will rotate to compensate for this. In general, the hips and shoulders will be rotated at opposing angles because this is how your body keeps it's balance. This "counter-rotation" is how we keep our body above our feet.
4. Balance
When creating static poses, balance is extremely important. To understand how balance works, we first need to talk about the center of gravity. The center of gravity is the average position of a character/object's weight distribution. For symmetrical objects, this point would be found in the middle. In humans, this point is at the belly button area, which is why if you reach down and touch your toes, this part of your body shifts backward, in order to keep you in balance. (Give it a try!) Using this information, we can
figure out if a character is balanced or not. If we draw a vertical line running through the center of gravity of our character, we should find that this line goes through at least one point or through the area between the feet. (The area between the feet is defined by drawing a line from toe to toe and heel to heel.) If this is the case, then your character is in balance. The playlist below explains all of this really well and gives great examples of balanced and unbalanced poses.
View the whole playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdvNrK-c96RH2MEobcVQqhp8j26Wr1gVk
5. Curves vs. Straights
This is a drawing concept, which can also be thought of as complex vs. simple. This refers to having a simple line on one side of a body/limb and a complex line on the other. This technique makes your poses more clear and dynamic and will also help to lead the eye. The simple side will let your eye flow over it and the complex side will hold the eye's attention.
6. Character Personality
Every character will react to the same situation differently, based on their personality. This also means that they will express emotions differently as well. Keeping this in mind while creating your poses will help keep your character consistent. This also delves into good acting techniques, which I won't be getting into in this post, but the most important tip is to know your character really well. Answering questions about where your character is from and what kind of things they like can help with this. If you know your character really well, then you will be able to decide whether they would do a certain action.
Using Poses for Animation One of the best things you can do as an animator is to regularly practice drawing poses. Give yourself an emotion, such as excited, disappointed, or confused and draw as many poses as you can think of that convey that emotion. (Try to choose more complex emotions than just happy or angry.) Next, pick one or two of your favorite poses and create it in maya, using a 3D character. This is a great way to learn all of the concepts that I mentioned in this post, and it will make your animation that much stronger!
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