All language subtitles for 068 Line Of Action.en

In this lecture we're gonna go more in-depth about line of action.

So line of action is kind of the first part of our gesture.

So what we're going to do is we're gonna have a look at a few photographs and we're gonna figure out

what their line of action is just so you can get a good idea of what the line of action is.

So right here you can see that we have this first photo of this man and the line of action.

Like I've said before previously in the course it's going to start about at the top of the head or the

neck it's gonna run right through it and it's going to go through the center of the body and it usually

out one of the legs or in this case it will actually go through both the legs just because of the way

we're viewing this pose.

So I'm gonna go ahead and draw it and you want your line of action just to be a quick line.

You don't want to be doing this sort of sort of sketchy thing you just wanted to be one quick.

Long line so let's go ahead and do that.

So basically start from the head.

So it had kind of curves like this and then back like that.

So kind of just makes a simple S curve right.

So a curve in the legs and it curves opposite direction than back up the opposite direction through

the head.

And so what you want to start doing is you want to start looking at poses and trying to imagine what

their line of action is you're gonna start your drawings of your characters with a line of action.

That's the very first step in drawing a character design is what is their line of action.

In some cases it might just be a straight line like that but in a lot of cases especially if you want

your pose to be dynamic it's gonna be curved or it's going to have like an S curve either one of those.

So let's have a look at a few more.

All right.

So let's have a look at this ladies line of action.

So her line of action if it starts in the head and goes through the torso it's going to go out the leg

that is mostly aligned with the curve of the line of action.

So what I mean by this is the line of action because our back is arched backwards like this.

That means that the line of action isn't going to be going through this leg right here because you can

see there's an abrupt stop to it if we do it like that.

Her line of action is just going to go all the way through her body like that.

So her body then this leg right here because that's all kind of that same curve.

Then you can start adding smaller sort of sub line of action.

So for example there's a line of action for this leg but the main line of action is right there you

could even add lines of action for her arm and just adding a curved line and deciding which way it's

going to curve and you can even break that down further into even smaller line of action.

So I can do lines that kind of curve out the opposite direction so this guy let's go to his line of

action.

So just kind of runs through the neck through the spine and out the leg.

So he just kind of has a C shape line of action.

You wanted to if you included his head you could kind of include this curve right here.

But his is basically just a C shape a line of action.

All right let's do a little bit of sketching.

So go ahead.

Switch over to the color black and let's just draw some simple gestures.

Starting out with the line of action.

So let's say for example let's draw somebody kind of going like this so maybe kind of a slight S curve

like that and the type of pose we could do with that is if we draw a head like this this kind of can

become an arm torso and this kind of becomes a leg

right.

And then we can have a leg coming off like this

maybe this other arm is right there that they can see we have that very strong line of action which

that's what we want.

We want a really strong line of action and all of our poses.

Let's do an example where we can see if we do a line of action just straight like this is very boring.

There's not much to it

right.

That's just born.

They're just standing there they're not doing anything.

So we want to get these nice curving lines of action so we can do it like this at the head right there.

The body

foot

and there is a person that just kind of walking go ahead and walk out that line of action just so we

can see it a nice strong line of action.

All right let's try one more so go ahead.

It's kind of move these guys out of the way a little bit.

And for last one let's see there's all kinds of line of actions we can do we can do one that's kind

of more and that's kind of more S curve like this just somebody kind of standing there right

and you can see that our forms and are shapes are kind of based off this line of action.

So for example we know that the chest goes about here.

And so since it's kind of angled like that that means that the chest is going to have that angle.

When we get down to the pelvis area you kind of a ball for the for the waist and then for the pelvis

we want to angle it more with the line down here.

So kind of like that

and we can go ahead and do this leg right here.

So this leg will just kind of follow this curve

right.

So there is another strong line of action it's always okay to kind of change that line of action too.

So I had to make a choice right here with this leg the other leg that the line of action doesn't run

through.

And I had to decide where I want to draw because if I won keep this line of action I had to kind of

move it inwards towards the line of action because what would happen is if I went ahead and I drew a

line like this

Well now there's stronger line of action would probably actually just be too kind of curve this out

like that.

So you have to kind of make choices but there's nothing wrong with changing your line of action partway

through your actual gesture drawing.

So just keep that in mind.

All right.

That brings us to the end of this lecture.

So real quick let's just review the line of action.

It kind of just runs sort of through the middle of the body kind of where the spine is and it usually

can run through an arm.

It can go from the arm to the feet or can go from the head to the feet.

But generally that's where your line of action is going to be just that center line that has that nice

dynamic motion.

And keep in mind that basically the only lines of action you are going to be drawing is either a curve.

So just kind of a c curve and sometimes it can be more curved like that sometimes it's gonna be less

curved and the other one is gonna be an S curve.

So we get an S curve on this guy here which is less curved.

It's almost a straight line and you could even exaggerate that more on that guy if you wanted to.

And sometimes you get really exaggerate curves like the one on this person here and you can even get

more exaggerated S curves than that.

And your character designs those are gonna be the main lines of actions that you're gonna be drawing

in your characters.

And just remember that usually we want to avoid just straight lines of action unless you're trying to

draw a character that standing very stiff on purpose you usually want to make it more dynamic than that.

So try not to do just straight lines of action.

Thanks for watching this lecture and I'll see you guys in the next one.