The importance of Drawing ROUGH
In 1989, when I was a teenager, Don Bluth came to our town to screen the opening sequence of All Dogs go to Heaven at the Scera Theatre and it was announced in the paper that he would stay to answer questions and meet people. I was so excited to meet him and give him my carefully written letter gushing about my admiration for his films and how much I wanted to become an animator. He arrived in a limo and proceeded to screen the opening sequence. Afterwards I waiting patiently in line to talk to him and give him my letter. He was gracious, but tactfully side stepped taking my letter and instead asked his assistant to give me information for their portfolio submissions for a possible future animator position. I went home very disappointed that he wouldn't read my however, eventually I put my artwork together and submitted my portfolio to their studio. My portfolio at that time was filled with a lot of rendered out realistic portraits, animals etc.
A couple of months later I got a response from the lady at Don Bluth’s studio. They sent it back with a very useful and encouraging REJECTION letter which said something to the effect of “we see you have talent and potential but we want to see more construction, structure, and fluidity in your drawings. In other words, They didn't care about how well shaded or photo realistic my drawings were, they wanted to see more evidence of raw DRAWING skills with construction lines and good expression and acting and character. That was the first time I really thought about those things and came to realize that there is a certain type of drawing that is an essential skill for every animator to master and that is rough and loose drawing. Other words and practices that fall into that category are gesture drawing, figure drawing, life drawing.
Rough pose tests samples from the pros.
Flipping your drawing
NOT ABOUT INDIVIDUAL DRAWINGS!
In creating good movement, it does not necessarily matter how well you draw individual drawings. You are creating movement with many drawings as they are played in sequence. I learned the following phrase from my first animation teacher who said…“Your animation is only as good as the sum total of all your drawings put together in movement.”
It’s about all your drawings working together. It’s not about one single drawing to be framed on the wall.
Gesture Drawing
Drawing from life and gesture drawing helps you become familiar with natural posing and gives you authenticity in your work. It also helps you increase your visual vocabulary. Just as writers need to have good vocabulary to express themselves through their writing so do you as an artist have to have a good visual vocabulary and you can only acquire that from experience in drawing from life. The best way to practice drawing rough is through gesture drawing from life. There are many ways you can do that. Especially when you are trying to improve your drawing skills. Gesture drawing from life gives you something to draw and a good base and spring board for more confidence and a boost for creativity.
