[Isric]

This is my next big quest. Most of the images I make lack...excitement, motion, dynamics. And while the subject matter is usually fine enough without it, i think I'm missing out bigtime. Has anyone studied this sort of thing that could help me? Like an animation student or just someone who's good at it? Isric begs your help

[dr . bang]

Hey Isric, i think your work are great! It actually have alot of emotion in them. After viewing through many pictures on your gallery, i see your character smile alot but none of them have ever laugh. So my advice to you is to exaggerate emotions in your characters. Try to make them cry at their extremes or make them laugh out loud.

Hope that helps a bit

[Collosimo]

Isric, check the composition discussion.

[Tendril]

I love your work how it is, but i think I know what your aiming for now. All your charcters seem to be the silent brooding type.

My drawing isnt really that great but im taking some drawing for animation classes at uni at the moment. Our lecturer is always talking about getting movement and life in our drawings.
Some exercises we've done are to draw inatimate objects and try and give them life. Practice drawing a sack half-filled with rice, draw it happy, sad, angry, etc....

That does get pretty boring though, its just what us beginners have been told to do. It may be going back too basic...

['Nectarine-]

dr. bang: there is a difference between motion and emotion

pleesh tchek yur speelliink

[dr . bang]

oops, never mind, i still want him to know that. Emotion also has to do with excitement in a way.

[BakaSan]

Study Loony Tunes and Merie Melodies!!! also maybe look at "Dynamic blah blah blah" by Burne Hogarth

[frostfyre]

I have to agree with Dr. Bang, Isric, I really have enjoyed your work, the characters are very emotive, if often passive. If there's something you want to get into your work, the best thing to do is find some pieces that display what you are trying to achieve, and copy them! Not a "real" copy, but a kind of, in the spirit of that piece sort of thing.
I find that lots of manga have very good action poses, as do many Image comics. I hope that you keep that marvelous emotive quality in your characters, even when going to action! Finally, Collosimo is right, a lot of this is being covered more abstarctly in the composition thread.

[Chapel]

Good question. Something I've been working with.. trying to make things look dynamic. It has a lot to do with composition, poses, and most importantly I think.. colors. In your composition you want to approach the pictures from different angles. If you are looking at something directly in front it takes a little of the "dynamics" out... unless you can draw the viewers attention to where the action is at. Take my last cover I did for example. It is pretty much a straight on shot, but has a dynamic feel (at least I think it does). I did one simple thing to draw the viewer in... added lines to the ground pointing towards a point behind the characters. After that I used the colors to make things pop. Boomstick pointed out that it looked a little too much like "candy". Well that was the idea. I used the dark blueish purple sky to help pop out the explosion and then vice versa with everything within the explosion. I'm probably rambling now.. but I hope I helped a little.

[roundeye]

those 'dynamic ...' books suck eggs. they are detrimental in fact. stay away from them, everyone. i have the same problems with dynamics. but sometimes i think that dynamics can be represented not only in pose but in lines and shapes. lighting and 'camera angle'. when most people here talk about dynamics, it seems theyre refering to the fact that the characters they see represented arent in an action pose like the comic books they read and study. fuck that. and even in that specific genre, they bite eachothers poses to no end. cut n paste instant dynamic action poses. heh heh.

sorry, im no help at all. oh, and if yer looking for a quest, try drawing something other than medieval archers 'n thieves. draw a car or somethin'.

[MoleculeMan]

I have a really similar problem heh. I find that things become dynamice when they are exaggerated. Not neccesarily the muscles like in comics, but the poses. Just take a pose like running, and instead of making it look like a real person running, exaggerate it. Bend the knees more and stuff like that. It sounds a lot easier than it is i know heh. Oh yeah, the appearance of exertion really helps too. Like viens in necks, clenched jaws stuff like that.

[Ben Barker]

I think if you're not careful you will end up with a pulp comic cover. The gun barrel flashing, the villain cluching his chest, the hero firing the pistol and throwing open the door, all at the same time. It's ridiculous. Unless your doing something really epic, like a huge battle or the kidnapping of Persephone, it just turns out corny.

[Felaxx]

Hi isric. I think I responded to this question like 3 times in different posts... >_< I don't know if I 'm helping any. I wrote something in the composition discussion thread.

I was fortunate enough to take a class with Carmine Infantino at my college, and he really knew what he was talking about when it came to manipulating the viewer's eye. Sometimes pictures are too dynamic, like a lot of the popular american comic book art, for my taste. So not everything has to be "dynamic" but when I saw your work lack of dynamics or bad composition didn't even enter my mind.

However if you want to, you could try just drawing composition exercises on like, xerox paper using straight black and white to illustrate a scene (like a girl sitting in an airport surrounded by people. Try to make the composition so that the first thing your eye sees is the girl by using the blacks and the people. He also told us to make everything "point" to where you want the vewier to look at... ). Make them really quick sketches, their only purpose is for you to practice your composition skills. That was the exercise Infantino had us do. It sounds really simple but it really improved my composition more than I thought it would've.

[Rinaldo]

Hey Isric=)

I think you already imply a sense of the dynamic in some of your stuff. even if the poses are somewhat static. there is life in there which goes a long way towards creating something "dynamic". it is not in motion but it is emotive.

I have a book called "The Art of Animal Drawing" by Ken Hultgren. I think he used to work for Disney (back in the day...this book was published in the 50s).
I sorta got it becuase it had some cool drawings and tips in it. but there is a lot of advice on what I think you are trying ot get at. good book anyway. if you don't have it, I think you'd like it=)
it mentions some stuff about motion in the Loomis book as well.
Have you got the "Disney the Illusion of Life"?? (you probably do) that's a good book for this kinda thing although it dosn't really talk about it specificly.

here is a scan out of the aniaml drawing book.
a tad big, so I'll link to it
http://www.seraphseven.com/rinaldo/Forum/Motion_scan.jpg

[burn0ut]

hmm that book looks real usefull rinaldo.. ima try n find it...

[Pigeon]

Isric, I think your work has a fair amount of movement in it. I really like the style - it reminds me of Mike Mignola. I've always been fascinated by movement in visual art, and one way I've explored it is through gesture drawings - just quick sketches to capture the motion of an object. Just sit outside or in a coffeeshop or wherever, and try to draw people as they walk by. You end up having only enough time to capture their basic lines of motion before they walk on by. Or try any live moving subject like musicians, or athletes, or even animals at the zoo. What I usually end up with is basic, but dynamic linear drawings. You can then use such things as the framework for a painting, or they look nice in themselves. Check out my website to see some of the things I've done along these lines: http://www.darklight.org/dunakin

Dean

[ July 30, 2001: Message edited by: Pigeon ]

[burn0ut]

/end joke :P!!!