Glenn Vilppu: The importance of Life Drawing in Animation

As Animators it is important we gain an understanding of how the human anatomy is constructed, as well as gain a broader understanding of how the body looks in a range of poses. Drawing for life is vital as it allows the artists to capture a more three dimensional portrait of the subject, with all the imperfections that entails, something drawing from a two dimensional reference photo or video does not allow

Extract from Glenn Vilppu's series of drawing manuals

According to Glenn Vilppu, who runs a series of online drawing course, big animation studios working on large productions involving traditional 2D animation aren't looking for cartoon caricatures or copies of their studios work and in fact look towards hiring those with a set of traditional, classical figure drawing skills and an ability to communicate movement and personality through still images. Traditional animators also need the ability to consistently draw the same character with the same bodily proportions while communicating personality and motion through a series of images.

Renaissance Style Drawing by Glenn Vilppu

Vilppu states that one of the ways to gain a greater understanding of these skills is to study Renaissance Drawing and Painting. These painters, Vilppu's states, were amongst the first visual storytellers, practically inventing the visual arts and Animation, he argues, is the closest thing we have to this type of Renaissance Painting today.