Animation Portfolio Workshop Character Rotations

 

Animation Portfolio Workshop Character Rotations 1
Character rotation by Autumn DeOliviera (Atlanta GA)

Once you design a character for your animation portfolio, you need to draw a turnaround that shows your character in four different views.  The idea here is to demonstrate a knowledge of character construction and an ability to visualize and draw the character from different angles.  Easier said than done.  No youtube “how-to-draw” video can come anywhere near being a substitute for going and getting this knowledge for yourself through lots of drawing and helpful guidance from someone who has been where you are and knows what you need to know.  Drawing.  It’s awesome.  Once you get into a top animation school, the workload is huge.  There are so many assignments to do which means that there is precious little time to go over the basics of drawing while keeping up with school – so you give yourself a real advantage by focusing on and learning the basic fundamentals before you get into a program.  Get really good at drawing – understand it and you will be prepared to focus on the specifics of animation, layout, character design and all of the other fun things you’ll do in an animation program.  A character rotation is where visualization meets observation.  If you learn to draw all kinds of forms in all kinds of positions then applying this to a rotation means when you draw your character you become free to focus on design, contrast in shape, life-like gesture in the standing position and most of all personality – all of these things we go over in a typical session of Animation Portfolio Workshop as we work toward portfolio preparation.

Animation Portfolio Workshop Character Rotations 2
Character design by Cherri Gao (Toronto CA)
Animation Portfolio Workshop Character Rotations 3