All language subtitles for 006 Line Fundamentals In Characters.en

All right.

In this lecture we're gonna be talking about the fundamentals of line and how they play into character

design.

Now when we talk about character design in line it's a little bit more important I guess you could say

than any other type of drawing while a line plays a very important part in all forms of drawing everything

from landscapes to still lifes line plays a very important part in character design because it really

helps with the energy and the gesture of your characters.

Now don't worry we're not going to be drawing any poses yet because I know that's pretty complicated.

But I do have a sketch right here that I just did of a character that's running now.

This character is made up of a bunch of different lines.

So for example we have lines like here and here and just at all of this all this is drawn with lines

and this type of line is really important this is called Your contouring lines.

Some of these lines are construction lines so for example these curving lines that kind of tells you

a little bit about the form but they don't really need to exist there but they curve with the form.

And so those are called contouring lines or I mean sorry construction lines.

They tell you about the form and these outside profile lines so on the profile of the arm for example

like that those are contouring lines but all this is lines and they're very important but more important

than these type of lines are going to be lines more simple lines so things like new line of action.

So with this character right here he's running and so he's definitely making an action pose and all

action poses can basically be broken down into one simple line called the line of action the line of

action usually starts at the top of the head and it moves all the way down to the body and out either

one or both of the legs.

Sometimes you'll find that you have two lines of action one that searching the top of the head and comes

out the bottom of a foot and another one that will start out one hand and move across the arms out into

the other hand.

In this case we don't really have that but I'll kind of show you example of what that would be.

But let's go ahead and I'm going to draw in the line of action.

So it starts at the head and it basically is the most smooth and fluent line through the body.

So we want to go like this for example.

That's not a line of action.

The line doesn't smoothly flow through that shape.

So the real line of action is going to be right here.

It's going to be right through that area from the head through the torso down through this back leg

because it gives you a nice curve typically your line of action is either going to be a curve like that

or it's going to be kind of an S curve like this.

So like I said this would not really work very well because it doesn't really follow that line of action

super well.

So there is a line of action now if his arms were out we might have another line of action going something

like that but they're not.

So in this case we only have one line of action.

So that line of action is really important.

That's one form of really important lines in character design.

Now we're going to go way more in depth with the line of action but for now I just want you to understand

that that's really important.

Next.

Let's go ahead and let's have a look at this another drawing.

So this drawing is not by me this is by an artist named Glen Keane who used to work for Disney or he

still might.

And he's an amazing art as he does really fantastic character designs and poses and stuff like that.

So let's go ahead.

We're not going to find a line of action on her instead of we're going to kind of look at some different

things so the first thing I want to look at is I want to look at the angles.

So characters have a lot of angles on them and a lot of the times they're invisible so the angles that

we're trying to look for are kind of more horizontal like that but they can be angled like this or like

that.

We hadn't talked about it in the very first character design that we drew just a few lectures back.

And so if we look at her for example we can see that we have a line if we draw a line connecting the

two eyes like that it's angled downwards like that the next main line that we can see on the next part

of the body would be the shoulders so the shoulders are almost a straight line that might be angled

up just a little bit but you can see that they're angled opposite.

And then as we continue to move down the bottom of the breast is angled downwards like that or you could

even use that dress line right there angled downwards.

Either one works or we can even draw a line right through the hips hips are kind of angled downwards

and then we can move all the way down to the feet and you can see that this ankle and this ankle we

draw a line through them that ankle back there is higher so it's angled upwards and you can see what

we get as we basically get these angles that switch back and forth back and forth.

Now of course these are all in the same angle because they're just showing you where you can find those

angles.

But if we wanted to just go ahead and even race out two of these.

So we only have one in there you can see that the main angles in this character they switch back and

forth.

Now you don't have to follow this rule all the time but it's something that can really help your character

drawings look really good as if you flip those angles back and forth.

So typically those angles are going to be in the face then it's going to be in the shoulders then it's

going to be at your hips or your waist and then it's you the next angle is usually going to be down

at your feet.

So these angles are really important to pay attention to and these are just straight lines you don't

have to draw this crazy curved lines or anything like that so you're blocking out your characters you're

going to teach you how to draw these lines in and make sure that you're blocking them out with a really

dynamic pose that looks good.

All right.

Great.

Now let's have a look at one more thing.

So another thing is a lot of the times in your character poses and even in the face or wherever it is

on the character you're gonna get things that kind of stretch and things that kind of squash and pinch.

So on her for example disregarding her dress or dress kind of flows down like that but you can see that

Glen Keane has actually drawn a line through the dress and you can kind of see the front part of her

torso down into her hip area.

So if we just go ahead and draw that line you can see it's basically a straight line it's a little bit

curved but then if we look on the opposite side we get this sort of pinch shape.

So we kind of get a curve shape going in like that and then a curve shape going out like this.

So it's almost like a backwards K..

Now this is also a very important line or shape that you're going to want to pay attention to.

You don't always want to draw this and this will sometimes show up more on females than males.

And don't worry we're going to talk about how to draw females and male character designs throughout

this course.

I'm not just gonna be drawing females but this shape right here is really important this stretch in

this squash.

If you're on your characters if you can get that squash on one side or that pinch on one side and the

stretch on the other side that very often looks good.

So let's have a look at what this would look like without drawing on top of her.

So for example you might have it kind of like this.

You might can have a character like that.

Maybe this one will be more of a male

maybe he has his hands on his hips

something like that.

Those legs are a little bit shorter but that's okay.

You shouldn't be getting the idea.

But you can see that I have I switched my color I have that line right there and then on this side I

have a pinch and so that right there is really good looking in your character designs.

So it's something to pay attention to.

But again we're going to talk more about this throughout the course.

I just want you to start to get the ideas of how line really play into characters.

These are the main key points in character design when it comes to line that I want you to remember.

So let's go ahead and let's practice drawing some lines.

So what I want you to do is I want you to just grab a blank sheet of paper and we're just going to start

drawing the main lines that you're going to see in your character designs.

Now I want you to draw these lines at least 20 times each.

Practice them if you can practice them daily.

That's even better.

But these lines are going to show up a lot in your character designs.

So let's start off first with this mighty old straight line.

Now I know this is kind of hard for a lot of people and I understand something that really helps me

to practice it is if I can draw two dots so if I draw a dot there and then a dot there then I can see

where my point is where I need to connect him.

So rather than trying to draw a straight line like that I can actually see two points where I need to

connect and it also helps you exercise your drawing brain it helps you see two points and actually forces

you to make sure that you hit that point when you draw the line through it.

So if we draw two points we can draw a straight line like that straight that again can draw a straight

line like that we can do it again.

And if you overshoot.

That's perfect.

We want to overshoot.

So what I I'm you to do is just practice drawing these straight lines through it and as you can see

I'm not even drawing that straight lines because this ankle is a little hard for me as I could probably

use a little bit of practice too.

But you can try all kinds of different angles too.

So don't just draw those angles.

Maybe try doing two or three different angles and drawing 20 of each of these straight lines and just

practice drawing those straight lines.

All right.

The next type of line that I'm gonna want you to do is I want I want you to draw curved lines so for

curved lines a curve doesn't matter that much.

The important thing is that you know that it looks nice and round so you don't want it to kind of come

out like that.

You want it to have a nice round shape like that so we're going to draw a couple of curved lines like

this.

And if you can draw this from your wrist I mean not from your wrist from your shoulder.

Kind of like when we're drawing the circle from our shoulder earlier if you can draw it from your shoulder

it's going to give you a nice rounder shape.

Now we don't just want to draw curves at this angle we also want to draw curves at this angle of practice

drawing them at that angle and not only that but we want to reverse the curve.

So go ahead and trace all these so we also want to draw curves at this angle right here now if you're

using a piece paper you can just rotate the paper so you can basically draw this curve right here.

But since the paper will be rotated it'll actually appear like that.

We want to make sure that we know how to draw curves at both angles because that's really important.

Now another curve that we want to be able to draw is an S curve which is basically just taking this

curve and this curve and attaching them together.

So it's just basically going to be like this.

This is a very important curve that's going to show up a lot and your character design.

So we want to get really good at drawing this and getting a nice flow a shape.

So like this right here that's OK but I'd rather practice and get that a little bit more curved and

a little bit more rounded and not so short.

As you can see I can have a bad habit of making that really short at that top part.

So I want to make sure that it's kind of even like that but that s curve is going to be a really important

shape that you're going to want to learn how to draw.

This shows up a lot in character designs and it also makes your characters look much more dynamic.

So by learning how to draw that type of a line that's going to be really useful.

All right next.

Let's go ahead and let's practice drawing the pinch shapes.

So there's going to be two types of pin shapes that we can draw.

One is going to be kind of more like this.

So we're going to basically draw a curved line like this and then a curved line going out in the opposite

direction so curved line in and then a curved line out in a practice drawn that over and over again.

And this is going to be really good because like I showed you before there's a lot of pinch shapes like

that in character design.

So we want to get good at drawing that pinch shape.

And then lastly or last type of pin shape is going to be like this so this shape is a very dynamic or

this line is a very dynamic line as well so we kind of get a curve like that but then we get a curve

going in the opposite direction.

So it's almost like an S curve where we attach both of these curves right there we attach them right

there those points but the differences is rather than having this smooth transition one into the other

instead we want an abrupt change like that.

So let me do a better example so we get a curve like that and then it curves out in the opposite direction.

This is a very dynamic line and this is going to also show up a lot in your character design.

So we want to get good at drawing that type of a curve so curves inwards.

And then there is an abrupt point men minute curves hours which sets that's pretty terrible looking.

So you want to get really good at drawing that shape right there.

All right.

So these are gonna be your basic lines that you're going to use throughout your character designs and

you want to get really good at drawing them.

And as always the only way to really get good at drawing is to practice.

So what I want you to do is I want you to go ahead and practice drawing each one of these lines at least

20 times.

Now you can just do this assignment right now and practice some 20 times each and just leave it at that.

But if you really want to get good at drawing these until you perfect them I recommend that you draw

these at least 20 times each once every day until you perfect them or if you don't have time for that

maybe do it once a week but perfecting these lines is really going to help with your character design

because like I said line plays the most important part in your character designs if you can draw a nice

smooth beautiful lines it's gonna make your drawings look much more clean beautiful and your poses are

gonna look more dynamic it's just going to look better all round.

So really practice drawing is a straight line the two curved lines in opposite directions the S curve

this pinch right here and then this other pinch where it kind of pinches in the opposite direction we

basically take this bottom pinch right there and we flip it like that once you've done this assignment

go ahead and post it to the Q and A section of the course you have any questions about this assignment

make sure you ask them and either me or my teacher assistant we'll get back to you and help you understand

the line drawings or maybe see what you're doing wrong and why you can't draw the lines perfectly.

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