130
The Art of Storyboarding
Many animation studios offer life drawing classes as a part of employment. In the early days at the Disney studio, these classes were part of the daily routine. These Disney classes started in 1932 at the home of animator Art Babbitt. Walt soon offered the artists the use of a soundstage at his studios on Hyperion Avenue in Hollywood. By 1934, this school was converted to a fulltime basis, with part of the schooling taking the artists to the zoo. Many artists, myself included, spend time at the zoo sketching the animals and the people watching them. I also do a lot of character sketches whenever I’m waiting at the airport. Any place where people of different cultures gather is great for sketching. For the animated film Bambi, Walt Disney had trainers bring in deer and other animals for drawing sessions. More recently, Jim Fowler did the same thing for Disney Feature Animation with lions and other animals for the movie Lion King. This obviously helps artists get a feel for the look and movement of the characters. Professor of biology, and anatomical consultant, Stuart Suminda has worked on more than 30 films, such as Garfield, Tarzan, Brother Bear, and Scooby Doo. He teaches artists comparative anatomy so that their work is based on reality, regardless of how cartoony it is. Besides real animals being used for reference, skeletons are often used. Skeletons teach artists the support structure of an animal and how they’re capable of moving. Sketching from a live reference is the best way to get a good feel for the volume of your subject. Sketching a moving subject forces you to sketch quickly to capture what you see. This helps you speed up and keeps you from overworking the art. Some of your best sketches are likely to come from quick live-action studies. Even though sketching live models is the best, the advent of cameras was a great advance for artists. All of a sudden an artist could pose a model, take a picture, and send the model home. Models were no longer needed to pose for hours or days at a time. Using photos to draw from instead of models saves artists time and money. In addition, when you use a photo you can draw from, you can keep it for later use. Digital cameras are getting faster, less expensive, and better every day. You can take pictures endlessly on the same memory card without spending an extra cent on film or processing. The only ongoing cost is the expense of printing the pictures on either a laser or color printer. Reference images seldom need to be in color, so a color printer is not always necessary.
Figure 25.4 Life drawing by Travis Blaise.
Figure 25.5 Life sketching with ink, at the zoo, by Mark Simon. Drawing an animal in motion keeps you fast and teaches you to keep your lines to a minimum.
To capture moving references, motion film or video is needed. The problem with video is that it has a tendency to produce very blurred images when you look at them a frame at a time. Some of the better cameras have fast shutter options that decrease the blur. Shooting video in bright daylight or other well-lit area also helps reduce blur. Resolution of the tape format also has a lot to do with how clear the image is.