All language subtitles for 007 Shape Fundamentals In Characters.en

All right.

In this lecture we're going to be talking about shapes now shapes are the next most important part in

the drawing fundamental pyramid.

So every master line we want to master shapes and have a deep understanding of shapes.

So how do shapes play into our character design.

Well let's have a look at a few different character designs and photographs of people.

And we're going to break them down into their basic shapes so everything can be broken down into basic

shapes.

When I say basic shapes I mean very basic I'm talking circles squares diamonds triangles trapezoid stuff

like that.

So we want to break this character Totoro into a very basic shape.

So the most basic shape we could do is we could if we wanted to go ahead and bring the brightness down

on this layer that way we can see a little bit better.

So we could break them down into a very simple shape if we wanted to.

There's actually a few shapes we could break them down into.

So if we wanted to just block in the general shape of him we could do either a big oval shape like this

or we could maybe extend it down a little bit more and make it a little bit more pointy at the bottom

in the top or we could even look at it kind of like a diamond

and that would be to block him out and let's say for a landscapes right here we have our landscape our

branch right there and so we would maybe be blocking him out like that if we wanted to figure out what

our composition was.

But if we're actually blocking out a little bit more of the detail of our character what we'd want to

do is we'd want to go in there and break Turturro up into separate shapes.

So let's go ahead and let's do that.

We can probably break the head down into a circle shape or an oval so it's kind of like this.

It's kind of more of an oval like that than the body can kind of just be broken up into a big circle

basically

then its feet can be broken up into ovals and we can even break up the bottom of his feet into circles

like that and then just an oval for the tail and we can do either ovals for that year or we could do

something like triangles you could do circles for the eyes and even his mouth area the top of his nose

can probably be broken up into a big round oval like that.

And as you can see we can just break him down into all of his most simple shapes and that right there

resembles Toro very much even though it's just some simple shapes.

So this is what we would do once we have something like our line of action so on this case for Taro

is just sitting there stagnant.

So we'd have our line of action going to the center and we don't have we have these curved lines out

here but we don't have a lot of dynamic lines in this specific pose Totoro but you can see that we have

line and then we have shape built on top of that.

So all these shapes are just playing off of each other.

Let's have a look at another example.

So here's to a hero from Spirited Away and we're gonna break her down into basic shapes as well so we

could break her head down into a circle just like we did early with her character that we drew so we

can have a circle for the top part of the skull area and then usually the jaw can either just be broken

down into sort of a line or he could make it a triangle there's a couple different ways you can do that.

In this case the bottom of her face is kind of round so I'm just gonna do another oval like that and

then we can go ahead and do that your ears just kind of oval back there her hair can be broken down

into kind of a I'm just gonna make it sort of a trapezoid shaped like that then we get the neck which

is just kind of a rectangle and then for her body I just want to keep this very simple so I'm just gonna

do kind of oval like this and her body is kind of doing that right there that were her spine it's kind

of angling outwards Her belly is kind of sticking out and then it kind of angles back with her but so

then we can go ahead and draw there and we have her legs which are basically trapezoid or rectangles

and then for the shoulders I can break that down into a circle and then do either you could look at

this like a rectangle or trapezoid.

Either way and then do another trapezoid for the forearm and then for the fist we could just break that

down into two simple shapes of one two.

Or we could just do a circle whatever you want.

We're just really roughly blocking in the shapes and then you can kind of connect all those shapes together

so if we go ahead and turn off our picture you can see that we have a very roughed in drawing of Tashiro

and this is how animators or character designers do this professionally.

They start off with their most basic shapes and they block it in from there they turn it into form we're

gonna go over that in the next lecture.

I just wanted to see how everything can be broken down into very simple shapes.

We wanted to we could go ahead straight back on break or down into even more simple shapes so we could

just do we're just blocking in our character we could just draw the head shapes as something simple

like that.

And then the upper body shape and the bottom of the body are the hips the legs

and we could just block it the arms and just kind of lines like this and then just drawn our fist down

there.

Then if we go out and turn a picture off you can see it.

That's another way we can block in our characters very quickly and simply just by using shapes.

Now once you start learning more about line of action and making sure that your characters look balance

and choosing a good pose.

Once you understand those things adding these shapes in will be really simple.

It'll just be up to you to choose what size you want shapes to be what shapes you want to use to represent

different parts of the body.

And then from there we can further detail it out turn it into a form add details and actually make a

character design.

Let's have a look at one more example.

So right here we have this male that's dancing.

So let's go ahead and break him down into his basic shapes.

So for his head let's just go ahead and draw an oval for the head we can make the chin a little bit

pointer for the chest area.

I'm going to break up his chest and pelvis area and two separate shapes or his belly area.

So we're just gonna get a big sort of trapezoid shape like that sort of rectangular.

And then for this bottom area I'm going to get a trapezoid like that

all right.

And then we can do rectangles for the arms kind of a trapezoid for the forearm

then I'm just going to go ahead and Ruff and just kind of two overlapping circles for the hands and

I want to get too detailed with this

and then for the leg we can go ahead and just could probably do something more like an oval like that

for the thigh.

Both of them

do something kind of like a trapezoid or triangle for the shin and the calf and then its foot could

just be broken down into a simple triangle like that

trying to keep that as simple as possible.

Let's go ahead and drop during the picture off now as you can see we've blocked out that character and

from here we could start turning this into form and really figuring out what we want our character to

look like and adding and all those details.

But the point I'm trying to make is that we always start with shape.

So after line we do shape it's the next most important part of the drawing fundamental pyramid.

So let's have a look at the shapes that you might be using throughout your character designs and how

you can work them to look the way you want.

So the first thing we're gonna have is we're gonna have circles so circles are just going to be as you

know a circle.

And remember the best way to draw a circle is a draw from your shoulder.

So you want the rotation to happen in your shoulder cuff and not in your wrist or in your fingers you

want it to rotate from your shoulder when you draw that.

That's gonna give you a nice round circle instead of doing kind of weird circles like that where you

kind of don't get an actual round shape you want to draw from your shoulder all right.

So circle is the first one.

Now circles can be changed into things like ovals so we can take a circle and we can stretch it out

like that and turn into more of an oval or an ellipse if you want to call it that next is a square.

So square we can just draw with a series of lines of four lines like that now rectangle what also count

as a square so we can have a rectangle where two sides are longer than the other sides and it's okay

if your lines overshoot especially you're doing under drawings a lot of times you get nice straight

lines you have to overshoot the lines.

So we have square circle then we have diamonds.

So sometimes we'll have diamonds.

Sometimes this is just kind of drawn like a sideways square like that

and then we also sometimes get stretched out diamond so something like this

next we get trapezoid.

So trapezoid are super useful isn't all the time when I'm drawing characters so it's just basically

where two of the sides are gonna be angled and then the other two side one will be longer one will be

shorter.

So just like that.

And sometimes these can be worked.

So maybe this one is more stretched out.

There's different trapezoid but they basically have four sides and two of them need to be angled.

And lastly we have triangles.

So let's go ahead draw a triangle.

So again we're just going to draw straight lines like that three of them.

So if they overshoots that we can get those nice straight lines and these triangles can be come in many

different shapes sometimes you have ones that are more with a right angle like that.

And then this one is diagonal and sometimes you get ones that are more stretched out like this a lot

more pointy.

So as you know there's a lot of different shapes that you can make using a triangle so these are your

basic shapes.

We have round shapes which are basically circles and ellipse as if squares and rectangles.

We have diamonds trapezoid and triangles and all these can be squashed or stretch to get a little bit

of a different version of that shape.

So keep that in mind when you're drawing your characters you can always squash and stretch your shapes.

Now these are the basic shapes we also get more organic shapes organic shapes be shapes that you can't

really split down the middle and make them symmetrical so if I draw a line down the middle of this one

for example you can see that there.

It's the same on both sides.

It's just flipped onto the other side.

Kind of like a mirror image and all of these can be split right down the middle circle all of them but

an organic shape would be something that's let's say something kind of wiggly like this and you can't

really split it.

There's no ways that you can split it where it's actually symmetrical.

It doesn't matter how you try to split it.

It's never going to be symmetrical.

So these are gonna be very important for drawing your characters.

So I'm gonna go ahead and raise this real quick but usually you're not going to be using that organic

of shapes when you're blocking out your characters.

Typically it's actually going to be these shapes up here but you're gonna walk them a little bit.

So what I mean by this.

Well let's take for example let's take the Oval.

Let's say that we have a character and we want some more motion and action in their pose.

So let's say that this is the chest or the body of a character.

Well instead of just drawing the oval just like this one up here what we could do is we can kind of

warp it a little bit and kind of make a curved kind of like a cucumber or something like that.

Now we have a little bit more of some motion in our shape and that curve adds that motion.

What else can we do this with.

Let's do it with a rectangle.

So the rectangle we can just curve these lines like that the tops like that and then we can do the same

thing but we can actually make it sort of fatter.

So what I mean by this is we can go ahead devilish rectangle like this.

So it has all four sides but all the sides are kind of rounded out like that.

So we kind of get more of a rounded shape even though we still have all four of our corners get that

nice rectangle shape but it's kind of bloated.

Let's see what the diamond we can do the same thing so we can kind of just create it like this

and we're just basically organic fine.

These shapes.

Same with the trapezoid.

We can kind of make it look like it's bulging out like that

and you could do the same thing with a triangle.

Now why would you want to do this why would you want to change the shapes like this.

Well let's say for example we're going to draw the pelvis of a character so let's say this is a female

character and we're blocking out the shapes.

Well instead of just drawing a trapezoid like this for the hips it might look a little bit better if

we kind of bulge those out.

So what I mean by that is we can just go ahead and draw like this draw like that so we basically still

have a trapezoid shape because this area right here is shorter than that line right there.

And we have four corners so it's a trapezoid shape.

We just added those curvy lines to it.

And then if we wanted to we could add another trapezoid up here and we kind of walk that one like this.

Maybe those are the shoulders.

And so based off of this you could go ahead

and draw your character and connect all these shapes together.

And that's why you would want to use more organic shapes and you'd want to warp some of these simple

shapes.

All right.

So your homework for this lecture is I want you to go ahead and I want you to practice drawing all these

shapes.

So first I want you to practice drawing circles.

I want you to draw 20 circles.

Now I want you to draw 20 squares 20 diamonds 20 trapezoid and 20 triangles.

I don't really care.

In what way you draw them they can be stretched out they can be squash.

It doesn't really matter.

I just want to practice drawing each one of those 20 times.

After you've done that then I want you to take each shape and I want you to try making five different

warped versions of it.

So for the circle for example I mean to try to do five different versions of it words warped maybe to

different extremities and then you can do the same thing with a rectangle or a square and try warping

some of these shapes.

So practice those top five right there and then go ahead and try doing different variations where they're

warped and become more organic shapes because most of time you're actually probably going to be using

more organic shapes and you are going to just be using these plain shapes but it'll probably be a good

mixing bowl.

All right.

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