this is probably gonna be a bit long so just a heads up i guess?? also please note im not a student for anything in art and am not a professional i’m just giving out my opinions on this and things based on my own experience.
do thumbnailing
you don’t always have to start it with the actual frame and the drawing for thumbnailing doesn’t have to be good. this is just to let you have a feel of what you want for the final frame. it also doesn’t have to be digital you can just doodle it in some paper you found lying about. this is also good for parts of your animatics where there’s lots of movement(like dancing!)
thumbnailing is also good for parts where you have multiple ideas! doodle all your possible ideas and see which one is best for that scene
perspective/angled shots
these are super cool and can help with the atmosphere of the scene! for example:
they also just look really nice and interesting and fun
landscapes and backgrounds
you can’t always have just a bunch of people gathered around all in one frame, you gotta show the setting of the whole thing
this also allows for your characters to move around more! don’t always make them flat like this though(this doesn’t mean you can’t do this, just don’t do it all the time)
grab a ruler or if you don’t have one like me, zoom out completely and try to make straight lines(they don’t rlly have to be perfectly straight though! but don’t make them too slanted either)
and if you have sai, free deform it and set the perspective to 100% and then just mess around with it!
also remember to add buildings/furniture/etc if needed!!
do dynamic poses
these help the facial expressions of the character! a lot of people seem to just concentrate on just the face for emotion but body language is also important!
you can throw in some perspective into this as well!
make a LOT of frames
as mentioned above, movement is very exciting!! and you can show movement with those frames. it doesn’t even have to be a lot of movement like one second they were there and now they’re in an entirely different spot, subtle movement is also very good!
try not to reuse the same frame too much! it might end up looking very awkward
also try not to just erase and add things to the body of a character as if it were some kind of paper doll stuck to a wall like this:
it’ll end up looking very stiff and awkward. instead, just redraw the character completely! make them move around a bit
you don’t always have to make things super clean
you don’t have to do clean lineart, just doodle a frame and make it easy to read for everyone on what’s happening. especially because drawing hundreds of frames is already so time consuming and not to mention stressful. do yourself a favor and not tire yourself out more than you should.
that’s kind of all the pointers i have. hope this helps!!!
so if, like me, you’ve done all the research on how clothing folds, and you have a decent idea how the physics works, but you just can’t get it to look right?
change all your lines into this
im serious
it makes everything look so much more natural
for added realism, just add random bumps to the line wherever you put one
and there you go!
(please dont judge me for my anatomy i drew this in five minutes)
– eyeballs are an eyeball width apart – ears align with the top of your brows to the bottom of your nose, and are the center-point of a profile view – lip corners line up to the center of each eye – hands are roughly the size of your face – feet are the same size as your forearm – elbows are aligned with your belly-button – your hands reach down mid-length of your thighs – both upper and lower legs (individually) are roughly the same size as your torso (this is all rough estimates for proportion! feel free to add more to help others)
YOU ARE A FUCKING SAINT
– the length of your legs + feet is about the same as the length of your torso + everything above it
AngelMihe 