(upbeat music)
- People want to see that you understand
an animation pipeline.
They want to see that you understand that you have to design
something that an animator overseas can look at
and translate into movement.
And they won't be able to know exactly what
that character looks like from all angles
if it's just a single, isolated, really cool drawing.
And so the things that you should be putting
in your portfolio when you're a character designer
are exploration, turnaround, special poses, and expressions.
And this turnaround is what is going to inform
the animation studios that are moving your character
because you don't design and move your own character.
Somebody else is gonna need to handle that.
And a lot of times we'll show
what do the eyes look like closed?
What does the mouth look like closed and open?
What is the bottom of the foot look like?
We need to add all of that information so that the people
we pass it off to know what to do with the character.
And that really demonstrates
that you understand the pipeline,
that you're not just drawing a cool drawing for yourself.
You're thinking about every other step.
I would say 80% of my job is special poses.
So, showing that not only can we do this turnaround,
but that the design works so well,
that you can have her act and move and pose.
That is so, so valuable in a character design portfolio.
- (gasps) Bunk beds!
If I can see that turnaround,
you've got a wide range of emotions,
maybe fear, excitement, anger.
If you can show all of that and it all works,
that's just going to put you leagues above the person that
has one standalone image of a cool looking character.
The next thing is, do you have a clear line of action?
You really wanna push the lines
and make them feel like a cartoon.
The medium is animation.
We really want to take advantage of it,
make the poses as fun as possible.
Draw a line of action before you draw the rest
of the special pose and try to have it follow it.
And you'll just kind of feel the movement,
and a great line of action will make your drawing feel
more alive than if you just kind of winged it
and you weren't following it.
The next one is silhouette.
Also a very important part of character design
and special poses.
And when you have a special pose,
you want to make sure that if you were to turn
the whole character flat, if you were to fill it all in,
in a silhouette, would it still read?
Could you still understand the action?
So if you look at SpongeBob,
you can see the two ways he's drawing this key, for example.
In the left one,
you can clearly see his fingers are holding the key.
It's not obscured.
It's a great pose that has an instant read.
Versus on the right, you don't really know what he's doing.
The fist is on the shape of it,
so it doesn't have a clear silhouette.
And because animation is so fast,
we only have 11 minutes to get our point across,
every single time that you can make your drawing
as clear as possible.
It's just gonna be a better experience for the viewer.
And it'll be a better design all around.
A really, really big part of design
is trying to break up that evenness
because it'll make everything so much more appealing
and so much more fun to look at.
And if you try pushing it,
even just like lasso tool and Photoshop,
make it bigger or smaller,
I think you'll really notice like, oh wow.
If I just made the head like much bigger,
it's much more appealing.
Do your best incorporate, as much as you can.
And don't feel like,
self-conscious if it's not a hundred percent ready,
you're probably more ready than you think you are.
- I'm ready!