"Oh not ANOTHER misproportioned girl with a gun! will it ever end?!"
If you're a girl, thats probably the first thing you thought when you opened this up and saw her. If you're a guy you're probably cheering (unless you think she's ugly.. you mean person you), and if you did none of the above, good for you, you didn't miss the point of this and judge my personality.
The reasons for drawing this girl is not so I can drool over my paper during ever frame of animation, or fantasize about the women of my dreams, or anything along those lines. I drew this girl because it is everything I have not tried, in animating a character. And this is the Character I am used for quarter 5 in my 2d animation class. Normally, I used Fox, but if I just stick with him all the time, what does that say about me? It says I can animate well, but it says I can animate ONE character well. And a dragon at that. So if I can show that I can animate humans just as good, if not better, that shows more of my ability. That quarter I chose to do something totally different from Fox. She's human, she's a girl(duh), she has hair, carries a weapon and other accessories, and her build, is normally not what I draw (slender, and exaggerated proportions). She's all that Fox isn't, so of course I had to practice alot before I animated her, right? And that is what you'll find here. Practice drawings, but still good enough to display.
These two pictures are some of the first drawings I did of her. The ACTUAL first drawings were done quarter 4, and you can find them HERE, just scroll down to concept sketches, and you'll find a similar, but bulkier version of her.
Anyhow, the first picture is just practicing with her, getting the basical shape and such, down. the bottom one shows more of a construction model, then what I make from it. and yes, I know the second page is slanted, but you try drawing perfectly straight lines with a sketchbook in your lap!
Many many gun drawings is what we have here, why you ask? because I wanted to try many different ideas of gun styles, before I picked my favorite. So here we have many variations of sometimes the same model, other times something new. but if you look, you can see the one I circled as my favorite, and thats also the one that I chose to do a full blown up rendering of it. so I know every detail. even if on the screen, it tends to usually be only about an inch big.
Heres more pictures of the gun, but theres are many different angles of it. I did this exercize to familairarize myself with the gun, and be sure I can draw it from all different angles. Also, later on when doing my animations, if I get stuck at drawing it, I can come back to this paper and use it for reference
This is another practice sketch. It's seeing how her hair moves in certain situations. Like, looking quickly to the right, up, down, etc. Alot of people dont realize this, but hair is very hard to animate, and it follows something called "secondary animation" which means, that it animates separitely from the rest of the body. This is easy to understand, extra things, like hair or tails, always lag behind the rest of the body. Example would be, if a person jumps, the body goes up but the hair doesn't, right? it goes down, and as the body gets to the peak of the jump, the hair finally starts going up, becuase it's lagging behind. If you think about this easy little thing, then consider what to do in like.. a roll, a fast run, a dive? etc. it starts getting really complex really fast. So this was a very good thing for me to practice on and pay attention to.
Hey look! NOT practice work! This is actually a Model sheet that I used for my animation class. This shows how I construct her, then what she looks like from front, 3/4, and side views. I also threw the gun on here, and showed how I make it, as well as her target visor, boots, and gloves. After all, whats a woman without accessories?
And here, is a picture that I did with everything out together. Her doing an action, with the gun, and the hair flying forwards to show she's jumping backwards and it's in a semi-decient backround. it's certainly no work of art, but remember guys, these are just sketches. you might think, maybe if I didnt sketch so much, I'd have time for a full rendered drawing, right? well, I would, but I wouldnt be learning to draw my characters as well if I did it that way. Besides, in animation you have to draw good, fast and many times. and rarely do you render anything out to full. And I DID render her out fully, just later, on the next page!
This was using the model sheet above, to create what she would really look like in doing some actions. Then of course facial expressions, But I didn't need TOO much practice on that.
