The human figure is complicated and beautiful and impossibly hard to draw well. If you can master it, the quality of the rest of your work will improve. When I have time, I go to an open life drawing session on Saturday mornings to practice. I don’t have anything recent scanned in yet, but here is some stuff from a few years ago (nudity).
For some people, drawings appear to just flow off their pencil. They’ve also usually been carrying a sketchbook their whole life. For others, it is a constant struggle to improve their drawing skills. When I was young, I fell into the former category. But right now, it’s work, and I think it will take drawing regularly for a few more years for it to become easier. On the other hand, fighting over a drawing or piece of animation (and winning) is good too.
Richard Williams, animation director for Roger Rabbit and author of the excellent Animator’s Survival Kit, writes:
"I've never understood why some people in animation are so desperate to save work. If you want to save work, what on earth are you doing in animation? It's nothing but work!"
Kelly is an animation student beginning her second year at CalArts, and writes one of a handful of LiveJournal weblogs that I’ve run across. I think she would agree with Williams, but she says it as only a passionate student artist can.
"I wanna be struck by my unknown story with anvil force, thrown against the wall by more than I can handle, smashed and lightheaded on concepts I don't understand but must master, and grinding my pencil through my desk as I carve the lines of the living character into the paper. I want it to be messy and painful. Because there lies the beauty."
