Welcome to Rusty’s Ramblings – a quick peek through the eyes of Emmy Award-Winning Rusty Mills, producer and director on Pinky & The Brain and Animaniacs.

This week from Rusty…

Shapes are very important in helping to define the look and personality of a character. Whenever I am designing a new character I try to find shapes that help give the audience a quick idea of what a character is like. These same shapes allow the animator to easily pose a character to show specific attitudes and gestures. Sometimes certain folds or patterns in clothing, hair, and even skin can help the animator move the character and give the character appeal.

Appeal doesn’t necessarily mean like-able but rather that the character is interesting to watch. Even some of the best villains are appealing. You want your audience to be able to watch your characters no matter what role they play. Each of the characters and hands (or character sketches) above are derived from appealing shapes. Though these are quick sketches, you begin to get an idea of what each of these characters personalities are. The gestures in each of the hands even tell a story. These shapes are exaggerated versions of real world shapes. Shapes on their own can simply tell the attitude of a character.

Often one of the first exercises presented to students in a beginning animation class is the flour sack (for those who don’t remember, flour used to come in cloth sacks). The exercise consists of animating one of these sacks as if it was partially filled with flour. By positioning the sack in different poses, the animator can bring it to life and even give it different attitudes. It’s a great way to learn how to give a character personality through the use of body language. This same effect can be used by using a simple bean shape.

Interesting shapes can also give your environment an appealing look. Though realistic looking environments can be appealing, using interesting shapes can make it more fun and add to the style of your animation. It’s worth observing some everyday objects to see what appealing simple shapes you can use to help define them. Look at how people use interesting and appealing shapes to decorate the environment around them. Obviously these shapes need to match the style of animation you want to achieve. The more cartoon-y the style, the more you can push those shapes and even eliminate some detail. So as you go to work or school, look around you and try to find the shapes in people, places, objects and animals.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Rusty's Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.