Life drawing and showing body movement through expressive lines have always been my passion. I feel that I can express myself and my thoughts through these drawings. During these first few months of studying at UAL, I learned invaluable lessons. However, the most practical lesson came from Vanessa’s life drawing session. She taught us how to exaggerate poses, which was not only challenging but also engaging for me. while she scheduled 4-minute poses, The first 2 minutes were to draw the pose itself, and the remaining 2 minutes were to exaggerate the pose. I challenged myself to quickly balance the squashing and stretching of body parts while drawing them expressively and correctly. (Fig.1). This session made a lasting impression on me. When I was creating keyframes for my body acting animation, I tried to exaggerate the poses as much as possible to express the action more effectively. (Fig.2) I used to rely heavily on references, trying to replicate them perfectly (recording myself performing a scene). However, after that session, I started manipulating those poses and making them more expressive.
Another valuable lesson was the perspective session. We sat on the floor and tried to imagine and draw the model from a low-angle perspective. Although I struggled with drawing the human body in perspective, I was happy with my results that day (Fig.3). Vanessa praised my work but also gave me advice on improving certain parts. This session made me realize that I could change the perspective of the body in my lip-sync project to convey movement better. For example, I adjusted the perspective of the hands when they came closer to the camera or made the upper body and face larger when the character approached the camera to speak. I was satisfied with the outcome.
I discovered that this is my strength in this field, and I want to explore it further in upcoming projects.
