Gesture Drawing Week 7: Story

Week 7 is the last "active" week of this course; meaning that it's that last assignment and critique that we'll get. The next week is just a quick little review. So, this is assignment is like our capstone project.

Story is the point of the whole class. Up to this point we've been looking at different ways to make our characters expressive, but expression for it's own sake is kind of pointless. Story is what gives context for our character's emotion. Sure, this girl may look sad, but the viewer is probably more interested in why she's sad. 

In this lecture, we draw 5 four minute poses with emphasis on story. We need to not only draw the main figure, but also the environment and other characters. Each pose progresses the story just like panels in a comic book. The pose of the figure should be exaggerated to reinforce what's going on in the story.

The home work this week was to draw a story for the second video.

A quick side note: Andrew the lecture implies that you need to use the poses in order for your story as a constraint. However, Louis the critique-er doesn't seem to care. I ordered the poses in the way that made for the best story.

Here's my submission:

Finished story.

My initial sketches and the corresponding references. I took some liberties with the poses. I kept the idea as I saw it the same, but moved the arm's around to reinforce the narrative.

Here's my first attempt at a story with a different video from a different lecture.

Here, I'm practicing posing this character and getting a feel for how she moves.