Task Nine: Poses

Eight Poses Created. Seven from Secondary Reference, and One from Primary Research.

Principles of Animation Recognized: Staging, Strong Design, Silhouette.

Extreme Poses

For Extreme Pose 1, I took a Reference from LineofAction.com to copy the line of action and pose. This pose was fairly simple, and had some actions which aren't typically done on a daily basis: the lifting of the leg especially.

I wanted my first pose to be more intuitive to understand some extremities of the body. Overall, I am very satisfied with how the pose came out.

For Extreme Pose 2, I wanted to create an extreme pose relative to a Dancer. The Image Reference showed the dancer in mid-air, which I found to be the perfect challenge for me. The main troubleshooting I attempted was on the legs, since the person in the Reference is wearing loose pants, I found it slightly difficult to create a convincing leg pose.

After some consultation with my peers and receiving additional opinions, the front leg needed the knee to bend to prove to be believable. This is the pose I am the most proud of, since it captures the energy and story in the reference.

For Extreme Pose 3, I found fighters to create dynamic movements and capture energy, so I chose a reference for such. I think this was by far the most difficult. Extreme Pose 2 was challenging because it was testing me outside of my comfort zone I established with Extreme Pose 1, but this Pose's challenge was because the person's anatomy was clustered together. It was more challenging to capture the pose.

I'm satisfied with the pose, but I think there could definitely be some improvements.

Natural Poses

For this Natural Pose 1, I decided on a common sitting pose with a bit of storytelling. The person in the reference is looking at his wallet with a triumphant look, which adds to the pose. I found the spine challenging due to the person wearing loose clothes and hides the shape of the spine. I used myself as a reference to see what the shape of the spine would be, and I identified it as a C-curve.

Natural Pose 2 showcases action: walking. This pose was quite well done, and I was quite happy with how it turned out. A repeated issue from the reference is the loose clothes which prevent from accurately seeing the spine.

Natural Pose 3 was a simpler pose in relation to the other two. The bit of struggle came from translating balance and centre of gravity. With an extreme pose, it seems much simpler to convey energy based off of exaggeratedly large movements; but with natural poses, it is a challenge since you focus on several miniscule details.

Timed Poses

For our first Quick Pose, we had ten minutes to choose a pose from a reference image and pose the character. I chose this one because of the model's legs and specifically their arms. Overall, I find this to be a very successful pose, and for the restrictions placed on it, I am quite happy with how it turned out.

For Quick Pose 2, we had 30 minutes to create a pose with a randomly allotted emotion. My emotion to express was "Refreshed": which I found a fairly difficult. My vision represented "Refreshed" as a person sitting in a chair relaxing, so I modelled appropriately with a reverse-S curve for the line of action.

By the 20-minute mark, it was complete. Yet without any props, the scene was bare with the character floating in space. In the remaining ten minutes, I modelled a chair to express the feeling. Only after the 30-minutes and I evaluated my work, I realised if I needed props and additional details to my scene to express my pose, my pose most probably did not work to express the story.

Only after this I compared the Quick Poses, and the quick work to capture a pose was far more effective than a slow thinking process. I am unsatisfied with this work, but I will definitely remember it for the lesson I learned that day.