Thumbnailing, and Drawing

Deciding what you desire your character to accomplish should be an obvious primary step, but I am continually amazed at the huge effort young artists put into creating characters with absolutely no idea what they want them to do. Then, when they try to animate them, they become frustrated when the characters will not do what they want. The primary rule of animation (and all types of film making, for that matter) is: put the story first. All huge movies and shorts have stories that every aspect of the production process must serve. Pixar, PDI, and Disney all followed this idea in every critically and financially successful animated movie they produced. They come up with interesting stories and then expend enormous amounts of R&D, artistic effort, and technical resources to produce their movies. Game developers operate on much the similar principle.

Scriptwriting is an art form unto itself. The intricacies of the three-act narrative and beyond are way beyond the scope of this short chapter. So, recognizing that a larger story will provide a narrative framework in which the discrete actions of the character carry that story, I'll confine my discussion of "script" to individual actions within that story. This process works well when you are working to create a demo reel, which can be made up of individual animation exercises as well as larger, more complex narratives.

Although having no plan is bad enough, having a plan that is too common is arguably worse. One of my nearly all difficult tasks in guiding animation students is paring down their ideas to manageable levels. Their troubles begin when they present me with ideas such as the following:

• "I want my character to fight."

• "I want my character to show emotions."

• "I want to do a single skin character." Why? "Because it's a test of my modeling skills."

• And my all-time favorite: "I want to create a realistic character."

And these are only a few. These goals, while noble, are much too general. Hidden in these easy statements are vast amounts of work that can rapidly overwhelm an individual.

For instance, the "I want my character to fight" story idea lacks some important descriptive work. Unless the character is going to shadow box, the animator will need to model, texture, and rig another character. So the animator has to do twice the work. Next is the question of what type of fighting the characters will use. Will it be American-style boxing, karate-do, wushu, or drunken monkey style kung fu? Will it be kicks, punches, throws, or grappling?

Every animator has some desire to generate Matrix-style, "wall-walking" fight scenes, but many fail to realize that each move within those fight scenes is extremely well thought out and choreographed. In animation, you may need to build and rig the character in several specific ways to accommodate those actions.

The cure for such over-generalization is a detailed description of every action. Therefore, an acceptable beginning for each of these ideas in the earlier list would go something like this:

• "My character will be required to throw high, low, and middle-height snap and roundhouse kicks at targets to the front, the side, and the back. He will also need to punch

and block with fists, open hands, and elbows."

• "My character will require to happily say the phrase 'the rain in Spain falls mostly in the plane' while winking leeringly off camera and sneaking cautiously off stage."

• "My character is a superhero in a red, skin-tight body suit. He will wear skin-tight yellow gloves that rise to mid-forearm and shoes that rise his shin. He will wear tight blue

Speedo-style shorts and have a big blue T emblazoned on his chest. His body suit will extend all over his head Spiderman style with only cutouts for eyes. He will need to run, jump, fly, kick, and punch."

• "I want my character to appear naturalistic enough to engage the audience. I will concentrate on making her eyes, face, and hair convincing so as to be improved able to convince the audience of the emotions she will have to display."

Although these statements are substantial improvements over the first set of ideas, these statements are only the beginnings of practical concepts. The next step is to describe in detail what the character will actually do within the context of the story. You need to plan each gesture, action, and expression before you begin modeling. By describing each action in meticulous detail, you'll get a good feel for exactly what you will require to animate, and unrealistic expectations will evaporate under the hot light of thorough examination.

Concurrently with writing the story for the character, you must draw constantly. Visualizing both the appearance of the character and the performance that character will give is essential to completing a successful animation. At this point, the type of preproduction depends on your individual skills. If you are a strong draftsperson, you should spend more time drawing than writing; if you're a weak draftsperson, you can spend extra time writing if you are more comfortable doing so. These drawings need not be highly detailed. In fact, you can indicate motions with easy, not-much-more-than-stick figures drawn rapidly. The quantity of drawings is what is important at this stage; drawing the character accurately is a secondary consideration. Furthermore, you need to fully describe each motion in the script. A kick should have at least four drawings: a ready pose, a raised leg pose, a fully extended kick pose, and a recovery pose. Keep in mind that these drawings help when you begin animating.

But wait! We haven't decided what the character even looks like, so how can we choose what it will do?

This vagueness is intentional because when possible, the final design of your character is determined by what you, the animator, plan to do with it. Remember that every facet of the animation serves the story you plan to tell, and you relate that story primarily through the actions of the character. Naturally the appearance of that character is secondary to the story itself. For instance, it is counterproductive to expect that an obese character can bend over, touch its toes, and vault into a forward flip. Some gesture drawings of rapidly drawn figures your goal is to create a believable performance; the model/character should help to achieve that goal. Conversely, you might already have a character pre-built or preconceived. In such cases, it is up to you to find appropriate actions for that character. Furthermore, animators working in an effects company may have this decision taken out of their hands entirely because they have to animate someone else's character; the animator then has no choice but to work with what they are given. My point is that animators should do everything possible to enhance their ability to create a believable performance, and to the extent the animator has control, the design of the character should not create that goal more difficult.

Drawing is the beginning of modeling, so the beginning of modeling doesn't happen in Maya, but on paper. Here, there is no substitute for drawing ability. Having determined what your character can do, draw the character. If you are not proficient in drawing, you will have to either muddle through or hire someone who is proficient. Ideally, the final product of this phase is a fully posed "character" drawing that reveals the personality of the model. You use this drawing as reference/inspiration later when animating.

More significant, you need to produce a front and side schematic drawing of the character.

The details of these drawings should match in both views. Graph paper is helpful for lining up details