All Entries Tagged With: "workshop"

RamSinghKumaresh Animation Masterclass Module 2

Having missed Module 1 of RamSinghKumaresh’s Animation Masterclass, I wanted to ensure that I attend the remaining two modules. Braving crazy Mumbai rush-hour traffic, I reached the venue - Whistling Woods International’s Karma Auditorium, only to find myself 15 minutes late!

Luckily for me, Vaibhav (KUMARESH) was just doing a recap of the last module. The auditorium this time was much smaller and better suited to the size of the audience. It felt more intimate - like an actual classroom - and this was reflected in the way the participants were sitting in rapt attention.

“A walk is controlled falling.”

Vaibhav began Module 2 by explaining the basic dynamics of a frontal walk. “Babies have no control over their limbs and keep falling. Once they learn to control falling, they learn to walk.” Using drawings of skeletal structures, he illustrated the twists and turns the body goes through while walking, the changes in volume that the body experiences, the movement of the head and the torso and so on. The same up and down bounce that you notice when you observe a walk sideways is seen when you view it from the front. (continued…)

RamSinghKumaresh Masterclass: Module 3

The third and concluding module of RamSinghKumaresh’s Animation Masterclass began with a forty-five minute session of live sketching. A volunteer stood on stage, changing his pose after every 5 seconds and the participants had to rapidly keep sketching. After sometime, Vaibhav instructed the participants to sketch without looking down at the paper. The idea is to train the brain - when you look at the page and draw, your left brain immediately begins to judge and, more often, criticize the drawing, so you end up focusing on beautifying the drawing. Instead, what you should actually be doing is trying to capture the form and the structure of the model. When you don’t look at the paper, your brain focuses on just capturing the lines - somewhat like a plotter would do. The aim is to capture the attitude of the pose.

“Scribble - Scribble - Throw Away!”

Sketching is a very important exercise. It trains the brain to really SEE and the hands to DRAW what the brain sees. Your observation skills improve. As you keep sketching, the brain begins to store the data, so that when you draw from memory, the brain retrieves this data. Vaibhav reiterated that what was being done here was just a warm up, and that too a brief one. When sketching, one must take it seriously - focus, not fool around, joke or get distracted. 10 minutes isn’t enough to sketch. One must practise for at least one hour daily. Another point he made was to not get too attached to the drawings. Use them for practise. He called it “Scribble - Scribble - Throw away!” (Continued…)