Form, Flow and Force: Richard Williams

Richard Williams' book The Animator's Survival Kit has to be up there in my top ten purchases of all time. This book is so helpful and informative, I don't know where i'd be without it. It goes into detail about the different principles of animation, and talks about terms like "animating on twos" and does so in a way that is easy to understand. It has certainly helped me when I've been animating.

I've decided to talk about it again as it is a great example of how the human form moves throughout a space, and it explains it in an animation context. Even though a good 90% of his drawings are rough and sketchy, he has managed to pick out the most important elements to capture the movement of the character. For example, in the photograph below Williams has demonstrated a skipping cycle and how you could go about animating this, but has done so by drawing the general shape of the character. It's effective for what he is trying to do as it simplistically explains the process, but the proportion of the character is consistent and it is just exaggerated enough to make it look like a "bubbly" skip whilst maintaining a degree of realism.

Skipping Sequence

Further Examples of Characters' Movements - Hip shaking and Jogging

There is also a section of the book that looks at how weight can be portrayed in your drawings and animations, the following diagrams I found to be the most informative/useful. Williams explains that we can show how heavy an object is by how we prepare to pick it up, so it's all about the anticipation of the action. Then there's the actual lifting of the object. In these diagrams it feels as though the rock is actually heavy because of how he has drawn the character struggling and the shape of his spine and arms. Usually if the object is light, the movements of the arms are very fluid as there is no resistance, but as the object gets heavier, the weight can straighten the arms and pulls the shoulders down. 

Considering Weight

I wish I would have remembered about this book before I drew my models lifting, pushing and pulling objects as this would have been extremely useful. Though I was not wanting to exaggerate the character to Richard Williams' extent, this insight would have helped me wrap my head around how the weight can be portrayed, as well as get me thinking about where the weight is, and how the pressure is being applied. I will certainly have to refer to it in the future, to see if I can improve on portraying weight and pressure.