SNG Exploration Blog: Line Of Action - Animation's Best Principle

One thing I understand most about animation is what people call "Line Of Action". This to me is one of the best principles to study.

It's a useful tool, the more you use it, the more the character has a decent flow and appeal.

Much like the staging principles in Disney's Illusion Of Life. This is actually really funny and relatable but it is precisely important.

Whether it took place in a time when animation was slowly loosing it's creativity and was condemned too limited, the line of action rule never stopped it's impact.

Maybe you think it's difficult to draw a pose dramatically or lively, using smooth lines helps!

I always dreamt of animating something in vain to old hollywood musicals, they have amusing songs and great actors and actresses.

On The Town is one of my favorite movies of all time. It has a wide selection of exploration while also having the best high-spirited cast of characters, this is a film I would highly recommend you checking out if you want to freely understand where I'm getting at with my own creative vision.

Alongside some other films I find influential and beloved like Singin' In The Rain, Anchor's Aweigh, Easter Parade, and most of the scenes in Mary Poppins, and White Christmas.

While I do like a bit of other movie genres for more variety, I do think they geniuely have weaker edges to them, they sometimes can have too much pauses, dialogue and filler in em, you don't really get to see that in musicals and that's why I love them.

If I ever get to design my own Illusion Of Life, the main step is movement and action completely. It isn't a full personality only for the looks, but the interests and motions the character has.

This is a character I recently came up with named Leland Copper. I drew him by using stock images of people dancing in freeze frames.

Likewise this picture. If your planning on drawing something similar to this man's pose, be careful, this is some high level stuff here. I know it looks fun, but believe me it'll be quite a challenge.

The Golden Age Of Animation was easily inspired by live actor's talents. Most audiences including the younger demographic watch cartoons because it's much more appealing and distracting, audiences recall Looney Tunes, Disney, Flintstones, and The Simpsons because of how the characters are portrayed in a more realistic atmosphere instead of it being overly cartoony and nonsensical.

You can tell when I love something, I carefully make sure it's positively suitable for me to enjoy otherwise I would explain the flaws, and I slowly change my mind about the entire thing, but I feel like I rarely express that with what I really love.

Even though I didn't meet with these people, I absoutely care and respect them.

Back to line of action and more inspiration...

Here's another freeze frame from On The Town, same as earlier but different set of pose.

The girl's name is Roeanne. Leland doesn't actually wear a sailor suit, just for practice.

Tap Dancing is extremely difficult to animate for obvious reasons, you have to learn the basics of timing your frames.

My favorite parts when it comes to someone tap-dancing the beat is panning the camera lower close to seeing their shoes completely moving in motion, I love this yet it's complicated to master.

You really have to stare closely right at this picture and focus closely in order to master the pose. You can clearly miss the left guy's cuffs on his pants.

Here's a screencap from White Christmas (1954). This is from one of my favorite moments in the film, Danny and Vera dancing is just beautiful, I also love the layout and production of this sequence.

What I drew first was Leland, and then carefully placed where Roeanne would hold Leland's hand. You have to really lengthen the size of this pose carefully. This was a good first attempt though.

While Appeal, and Solid Drawing is important, the principles to action like timing, overlapping and exaggeration is why animation exists as a medium and is still very useful today.