More Drawing Tips!

Body language + Expressions = Story

Hey! Welcome back. Here’s some more drawing tips from the archives (my hard drive). I created these a couple years ago for an animation drawing class I was teaching at Loyola Marymount University. Enjoy!

It isn’t clear what the story is in this drawing because it’s a neutral pose with a neutral expression. They’re holding something but it’s not clear what. We don’t really know what they’re thinking because the expression and their body language isn’t telling us anything.

By adding two lines to the rectangle they’re holding it becomes an envelope. We can see by their body language and eye direction that they’re looking at it, but it’s still not clear what they’re feeling because their expression is still neutral. To make the story clearer we need to push the pose and the expression further.

Now this drawing has a story. They’ve opened the envelope and their expression tells us they are curious or intrigued by what they find inside.

By the look on their face and the fact that they’re jumping for joy we can infer that they’re overly excited by what they read or see on the paper. The pose is telling us a story.

This pose tells us a different story. Whatever they read on the paper has left them dejected and forlorn.

And this pose is telling us another story or maybe the next part of the previous pose’s story.

Every drawing should tell a story.