Life Drawing PART TWO - Pushing and Pulling (OUAN404)

Looking at drawings that involve pushing and pulling specifically, it was beneficial to observe how the body applies force, how people plant their feet on the ground and what positions in which to push and pull feel the most comfortable.

Cartoons may look exaggerated, but they only work if the physics are grounded in reality. Momentum and the fact that with every action comes an equal and opposite reaction (nobody quote me on that) are important because otherwise the audience has no connection with the character and the impact of the slapstick comedy means nothing.

It's the application of the twelve principles of animation, like the squash and stretch and the ease in and out that make the contact of the frying pan with the head so powerful and cathartic.

Drawing from real models pushing and pulling helps me capture the sense of weight that goes into every interaction a character has with an object. For later drawings, I used my flatmate as a model who was wearing a big baggy coat. I wished that he hadn't been, because in this instance I would have liked to focus on the specific shape that the body itself makes when it is exerting force, then I could've added clothes around it if I were designing a character.

I'm pleased with the defined mark making in these drawings. Everything looks like the thing that it is meant to look like which is also good I suppose.