Drawing Practice - Basic Shapes

In order to figure out the style of my characters, I decided the best way to do this would be to draw the body proportions as cylinders and other basic shapes to get the position of the limbs right. This was a good time to get used to the graphite brush that I want to use in my final animation.

It feels light as you move the brush and it leaves a natural-looking texture behind, however if I draw in a sketchy way then it will make some of the lines look thicker, which will look odd and inconsistent. I will have to take this into account when making the final decision on which brush I should use to animate with, depending on the drawing style I go for.

Since I used screenshots from my reference video as a basis to draw these poses, I think they look OK. The proportions on most of them look correct - apart from second from the right on the bottom row with her left leg being in the air. Using these screenshots has helped me start getting used to drawing Rachel in a variety of positions, which is what I need to practice the most; now I need to continue practicing drawing in different styles to figure out the visual style for my animation.

After drawing these poses, I wanted to test how I could draw the dress in motion. Overall I think they have turned out really well - using blue to shade it in really makes it stand out and compliments the red lines quite well. Setting the shaded blue to a lower opacity allows you to see where her legs are, giving the viewer a perspective of the actual shape of her body. It could be an interesting technique to keep these lines in my final animation faded under her dress, so it has a sketchy look to it.

I will use this as a basis for future tests I do and consider how the fabric will be animated.