76 Action Analysis — Hands and Feet

In life drawing classes there is a tendency to start somewhere around the head and end up somewhere around the knees. Perhaps the students are influenced by the thousands of sculptured torsos and portrait paintings that fill the museums, galleries, and art books. However, for the animator, such a restricted area of study is for all practical purposes useless.

Pantomime plays an important part in animation, especially in scenes that contain no dialog. Even those scenes with dialog are greatly enhanced and, of even more importance, caricatured by pantomime. If the animator were to study the mime, he would find that the hands and feet are one of the most important parts of the body in the representation of an action or of a character, a mood, or a gesture.

To emphasize the importance of the above premise I have selected some illustrations, which are presented in two different forms — one showing the head and torso, one showing the lower legs and feet plus the lower arms and hands. I submit that the latter drawings explain the poses much better than the ones with the head and torso only. I am not suggesting that you begin an extensive study of hands and feet, but only that when studying the figure you put the emphasis on the parts that explain what you are drawing. Otherwise your study becomes a mere repetition of torso after torso, after torso, after torso, etc.