Model Sheet, Model Breakdowns and Gesture Poses.

Dan Evans
Oct 31, 2022
2 min read

Updated: Jan 11, 2023

Designing a model sheet for my characters was a tedious part of the pre-production development and although I know it is a necessary component to my project it did come with its own challenges. My main issue was that I had to draw the characters in what I believed to be a dull pose which isn’t the way I usually explore the physicality of a character. At this point I found it incredibly challenging to complete.

Everyone works differently and everyone has their own process of how they develop a character and use that character within their sequences. I therefore decided to draw various gestures and poses of the characters in an attempt to creatively fight through this mind block and in doing so, found drawing gesture poses extremely helpful when trying to figure out the physical limitations of a character before animating. This process helped me identify the boundaries a character can perform in and when appropriate exaggerate their poses and movement.

I do feel that even though I may reference my character sheet on some occasions I will undeniably be referring back to my gesture drawings of the character for support and guidance. This process enabled me to gain clarification over the physicality of each character and scale them up against each other.

I suppose a main factor as to why I found this process so frustrating to achieve was my lack of confidence in my own drawings. At various points I struggled to critically assess the quality of my work and to evaluate it from an objective perspective mainly because I created these drawings. I compare my work to the work of other individuals, not because I am competitive but because I see others' work as inspiring and hope to achieve the same level of artistic ability and quality. All of this amounts to adding unwanted and unnecessary pressure on oneself. So, how did I get past this obstacle? It may be a cliche phrase to state but staying true to oneself is the best approach to take… to not compare yourself to others but to compare yourself to the person you were the day before.

Gesture drawing to help assist with figuring out the form of the characters: