Life Drawing: an Essential or an Extra?

May 9, 2009

Observational drawings of a preschool girl at a research session by Tim Rauch.

As kids, one of me and Tim’s earliest animation heroes was Glen Keane. Tim wrote him a letter and included a photocopy of some of Keane’s Aladdin thumbnails asking for an autograph. The photocopy was returned with Glen Keane’s signature and a form letter that encouraged pursuit of a career in animation. The letter was appended with a list of suggested reading material— Illusion of Life, Muybridge, and more. Those books made up our birthday and Christmas wish lists for many years after. The big message we got from Glen Keane’s response was that a solid foundation in drawing and observation of life was an absolute essential for any animator. We pursued that skill above everything else— Tim especially.

It was 1993 when Tim and I excitedly read Glen Keane’s form letter. It’s now sixteen years later, and a lot has changed in the animation industry— Flash, CGI, more use of puppeted animation, and even Glen Keane’s studio closing and now reopening. It makes me wonder if the essential skills Glen Keane outlined for us as kids are still the same today. If you want to work on a hand-drawn show, then surely your foundation ought to look pretty much the same now as it would have then. On the other hand, there a great many jobs in animation today where I imagine one could get by with little to no ability for life drawing. So how should students of animation be trained? Should there be different tracks depending on the individual’s interest? Should all animators have a robust foundation in life drawing? As the industry continues to grow and change, it’s important that we reevaluate how aspiring animators should be preparing themselves for professional work.

The photocopy of Aladdin sketches signed by Glen Keane is framed on the wall of our studio today. It’s a reminder of the long path we’ve taken to get where we are, but it’s also a reminder of the foundation our studio is built on. If you got a letter today from a ten-year-old wanting to work in animation, how would you tell that kid to prepare for a career in this industry? Would life drawing be an essential part of the mix, or just an “if you want to” extra? I know Tim and I would still call it an essential, but I may be biased since that’s key to the kind of animation we do at Rauch Brothers. But I do think that a solid foundation in the basics will increase an individual’s ability to work in any way they choose. That flexibility will make them a more valuable asset in the work place, and give them the fullest range of choice in their career. Please comment and share your thoughts on the subject.

Sky David

One more note: When I was an animation student at Cal Arts, 1972-74, the great to be master at Disney, Glen Keane's animation drawing station was just behind mine. He excelled beyond the program even then. I treasure having seen him work and develop and watching those masterful hands move the pencil.

Sky David

Here I am at 62 with a commercial animation production house and still taking figure drawing classes at the Watts Atelier in Encinitas. The challenge of drawing with acuity from observation translates into acuity from conception of dramatic action and character "body language". That kinesthetic awareness that the animator brings to the direction of the action, the staging of that and even the "lensing" or way the viewer sees the scene is the "art" and no amount of CG can ever or will ever do that! This is never an issue of "hand drawn" over "CG". It is always the issue of communicating feeling, drama, human presence from the screen. Then the "screen" is alive, we are drawn in and the "tech" of just how that is done is a none issue.

Emmett Goodman

For me, life drawing is a fearful requirement. It shouldn't be like that for everyone, but needing to know how to draw is an absolute. This is not just for hand-drawn animation, but for stuff like stop-motion, CG, and experimental forms. If I were to give someone advice on just being an animator, it would be to draw, to be open to different styles, different mediums, different art forms, and really paying attention to what it is you love about animation in the first place. And observation is something very important to remember, but shouldn't necessarily mean just looking, but also thinking outside the box.

stephen

To me what seems most important is a keen eye for observation. Being able to recognize actions, poses, facial cues, compositions, and forms. If you can't read these specific visuals, there's little hope that you're ever going to be able to put them in your own work. Even if you can't draw them, you should be able to utilize them in some other way. put them in a 3d character, or a flash puppet, for example.

Ideally you learn these things so well that they become second nature, and you don't need to think about them any more. Other things like timing are still really hard to learn, and always will be. these things require observation too.

so it's no surprise that someone who excels at figure drawing will excel at these other things. But correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. being able to internally recognize and imitate people's habits and speaking mannerisms is another good exercise (just don't be a jerk about it).

breaking all the rules is ok too.

Tim Rauch

Hey Bob, you know I'm not always 100% sure what "cartoon" would even be. Animation drawing for me is distinctly different from figure drawing because it is less "observational" and more "constructed". When I got back into doing animation, studying Owen Jones' "Grammar of Ornament" was indispensable to me. That book takes a pretty thorough look at how to arrange a distinct pattern of line and shape in such a way that it is immediately attractive and has visual strength. When I do character animation, it feels like some kind of middle point between observed figure work and repetition of organized patterns.

Okay, enough academic bullshit, everyone go out and make some drawings already!

Bob Flynn

Being able to draw never hurt anyone. That's for sure. I don't spend a lot time studying the figure now, but I know it would make me a better artist...you can't argue against that. I tend to study cartoon form more these days because its more direct to what I'm doing. And it's pretty abstracted from reality. But I do think it limits how I think about the figure, and drawing as a whole.

Tim Rauch

I think learning figure drawing is absolutely essential if you are going to do character animation. Even though you may work with a puppet, created inside or outside a computer, figure drawing will enhance your ability to understand the motion/emotions of the human body.

That being said, I can think of a lot of great work by a lot of great animators that contradicts the idea of figure drawing as a necessity. Much of Norman McClaren's abstract work makes no use of the human body. Caroline Leaf created an emotionally moving world rich in character in "The Street" and did not exactly demonstrate "mastery" of the human form or it's movement.

Ultimately, animation is a choreographed dance put on by the artist who creates it. I happen to do this in a way that relies heavily on close observation of the human form, but the field is much more wide open than that. It's the art of creating images and forms in motion and for that their is an almost endless universe of disciplines to call upon.

Boiling it down to the most essential things, I would say animation students would benefit most from these things: having a breadth of knowledge in many fields, strong image-making skills, an understanding of the function of time as an artistic element, and the discipline to execute their work. That's it!

Life Drawing: an Essential or an Extra?

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Life Drawing: an Essential or an Extra?

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