Poses - Keith Lango

I watched the Keith Lango VTS tutorial on Poses and it gave me a good insight into how I should be setting up my characters. Tips such as adding Appeal & Emotion to your poses were useful, as you wouldn't normally think about posing in such a way.

As Keith explains it, you use Appeal to draw your audience toward the character, so they can read the character and understand them easily. The audience have to care about the character, to relate to them so they hold their interest.

These are some useful tips I took away from Keith Lango's video on posing:

•  There is a 'line of action' with posing, you should try and create a 'force'.

• There are lines flowing in a strong direction, there is a sense of motion, even though it is a still image.

• Look at where the characters force is driving.

• Don't have all poses the same size & intensity, think of a mountain range where some peaks are higher than others.

• All parts of the character create a visual flow.

• Plan and understand what is important to look at in the scene.

• Use animation principles as a guide, NOT a checklist.

• Good flow makes animation easy to understand.

• If using props, work them into the flow.

• Tilt the head! It adds weight, personality and accentuates the line of action. Helps make your characters accessible and appealing.

• Add energy to the pose, don't have a straight up and down line of action.

• Shift weight off both feet and distribute unevenly.