Expression by Shape

When I was in school at Cal Arts we used to get the "flour sack" (some of you might not realize that flour used to be sold in large sacks) lecture all the time. Through the years I find myself still coming back to the principals set forth in that lecture. Basically the lecture showed how you could take an old flour sack and get expression simply by how you posed the sack. I've done a similar thing above but through a simple bean shape. You can see how with a simple shape you can express emotion. Even complex ones can begin to be betrayed with the initial shape you put down on the paper. Now you may look at these shapes and think 'but my character is not that shape". Even so you can take your character and break it down into the most fundamental of shape(s). A realistic human can be divided into about 8 shapes. There are times where I have figured out my initial action simply by animating a single shape. Then I can begin to bring more details of the character into the scene. This can help with overlap of action and secondary motion. Drawing simple shapes are a great way to start when designing a character. I'll write about that subject in another post.