Hi guys! Here's Monday 28th Nov's
Sketch-ercise... "What delightful theme could this possibly be" I hear you ask? Well, for a little while now, I've been feeling like I need to work more on the "
Performance, Acting, Emotion & Believability" of my characters/ general design... I've never felt I've
fully understood the laws & intricacies of these key subjects, so over the next few weeks, I'll be looking into them further as the basis for my themes...
I really believe, like actors, characters [creature or human] should convey a
strong/ clear sense of emotion & expression relating to whatever situation they're in or personality you've given them. I think it's safe to say, anyone can draw a circle, add a few lines to create an angry, sad or "smiley face" & have pretty much everyone in the world recognise it as one of those generically basic emotions; but to capture the little things... subtleties... or those, what I call "sub expressions" like
cautious,
weary,
ashamed,
snide,
anxious etc, again, like acting, they need time & lots practice to make them truly convincing... and so the study begins!
I've always been a huge
John K fan, & I remember listening to this interview one day where he was explaining how there are many more expressions that can & should be explored using those basic happy, sad, angry, tired etc emotions... Over at '
Spumco' [early 90's], when "
Ren & Stimpy" was in full swing, he'd always encourage his team of animators to really push the variety of expressions... Although in this case, the "Ren & Stimpy" style of expression & acting focused on hyper exaggeration, but the true principles of "
Performance, Acting, Emotion & Believability" was very much applied... Here's one of my favourite "
psycho Ren" scenes, where Ren looses it with his Austrian cousin "Sven" & as usual, Stimpy too;
the performance given to Ren in this is brilliant!
Something also worth checking out when you have the time is this "Label" compiled list of
blog post by John of all things under "Acting"... This is a GOLDMINE for any animator or illustrator out there; some seriously informative stuff worth noting/ practicing.
Lastly, here are two of my all time favourite actors,
Charlton Heston &
Kirk Douglas... BELIEVE ME, I could spend another hour on here, writing on what I love about both! But alas, it's already like 4am here in London, so I'd better retire now.
Well I hope I haven't bored you too much with my thoughts, ramblings & run-on sentences folks.
Later!
-M-
It's actually been a lot tougher than I thought... but in a good way... I've had to admit to/ come face to face with weaknesses I've had, & avoided for far too long... Found myself having to go back to basics to really try to grasp an understanding of this theme. As well as just trying to build my knowledge of human "expression" & "emotion", I've also been trying to apply it stylistically to the way [at this moment], I draw...
Anyways, I digress, but that's pretty much my reasoning for choosing this as a concept for my theme... to explore the physics of how the body might move & react in this situation; & convincingly capture pain/ emotion in facial expressions & body language.
