In the old 2D days, life drawing was an essential skill for animators. Today, 3D animation is a blend of creative and technical skills, and life drawing is less important than it used to be.
Nowadays there are many opportunities to learn animation online, at sites such as pixelovely and promo. You can also draw friends and family - models don't need to be nude, and gesture drawing clothed models is just as useful for animation, and in some ways more practical, as most animated characters tend to be wearing clothing.
So, how do animators learn the basics of life drawing?
Life drawing classes
We strongly recommend that our animators participate in life drawing classes, if these are available locally. For those who can't find a local life drawing class, for whatever reason, sites such as Pixelovely offer a free online solution. To sign up, follow this link: http://artists.pixelovely.com/
Gesture Drawing Gesture drawing is an important skill for animators - it helps us learn how to capture a pose, and to master the art of visual storytelling. Planning your animation with quick thumbnail sketches that tell a story is still one of the core skills of the 3D animator - it's why we still need to know how to draw - at least just a little bit. Proko
We recommend this series of videos by Proko, hosted at YouTube. The particular playlist we're interested in is titled "Figure Drawing - How to Draw People". You can find it here.
Avoid "the Curse of the Outline"
Most of us start off our drawing careers drawing a bit stiffly, creating a rough outline of the figure and ignoring the hard bits, like the face, hands and feet. The Proko videos explain how we can loosen up our drawing style, finding the line of action in a pose, making it more dynamic and supple.
Recently a student came to me with some excellent gesture drawings. "Where did you go to life drawing classes?" I asked. "Oh, online", he replied. His drawings were so good - I hadn't realised he hadn't actually been in front of a real model. But nowadays you don't actually need to attend a life drawing class to draw from life (though of course it does help). In fact, there are many sites online where you can draw figures from life - without ever leaving home.
An understanding of human anatomy, and the ability to capture a pose or gesture in a few lines, is still a key skill - even in a digital world. Fast sketches are useful, helping animators to make quick thumbnails to plan animation - a technique which hasn't changed since Disney's Golden Age.
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