visual language: form, flow and force animation techniques

The study task we did was really helpful to me and i have learned how to go about making movement sheets and also to draw from real life rather then referances which are 2D, it gives you the opatunity to observe elements you did not know about. for example one part of the study task was to draw someone posing for 20 miniuntes, this allowed me to break down how i should go about drawing this person and at what angle.

I can see why i would go about these techniques in order to create simple and quick animations showing movement, One reason to do it is because of overlapping the movement; it acts as a onion skin which showcases all the frames of the movement. This is really helpful in animations because most of the time when we create animations we always have to check if the movement looks right by either the onion skinning tool or by dropping the opacity of each frame/layers.

another use of the techniques is adding weight to the object/person most of the time its hard to give weight, because its we either dont think about it or rather we are not looking at real life referances which could help to create the characters. i found that when drawing from life i could feel the weight of the person in front and that is something you cant define without actully seeing it in real life. Most animators probaly do draw from life because its different and you cn observe the oject/person from different angles rather then looking at a 2D image which has its limitations unless you take many pictures at multiple angles, also drawing from life opens the mind up to notice things you've never spotted or details of an objects you havent seen before. for example i noticed something when i was drawing the poser that i didnt really notice before like the body proportions ive learned from anatomy books helped me to define the shape but seeing it myself was different and the pose felt more natural as i was drawing them whereas in the book they were stiff sketches.

there are many ways to use these techniques and i have realised that from doing the study tasks, and i look forward to using these techniques when i am stuck with producing a character design or if the movement im creating looks wrong because drawing from life can help a lot.