14. Shape Basics - Simplifying Reality with Basic Shapes

This lesson comes from notes taken from this Youtube video by Stan Prokopenko, and from Aaron Blaise, character designer for Disney, who has this website on drawing animals.

The exercises in this lesson will feel very similar to our previous CSI drawings, and, indeed, you should keep using those CSI lines. But, here the focus will be on seeing simple basic shapes. These shapes need not be regular or geometric - they can be round, organic, irregular shapes. You can also deform them, bending and squeezing them in simple ways. The results need not be realistic, precisely proportioned, nor shaded. Just try to capture the feel and character of the animals you draw here.

NOTE: You will see here that simplifying isn't simple - it's really hard. You're not just copying what you see, you are planning, interpreting, and designing something new. You have to ask yourself, what can I change? What can I remove? What is so important, it must remain?

Why do this? The ability to break down a complex subject into simple shapes makes the drawing process easier. As you improve at this, you will get better at starting drawings, at seeing the overall picture, before putting down details. Nothing is more frustrating than putting brilliant details in the wrong places, and having to erase them, or start all over.

PRO TIP: Look for "envelopes" large shapes that contain many smaller shapes. Imagine if it were gift wrapped, what it would look like.

What we're really learning here is how to plan a drawing into stages, so that we don't try to do everything at once. Seeing simple shapes is a useful Step 1. It's useful in character design, especially, because once you know the simple shapes, it's easier to move, twist, contort, and pose them in different positions:

PRO TIP (from Aaron Blaise): For most four-legged mammals, you can break down their body into these shapes: head, neck, shoulders, belly, hips. As you design these shapes, consider which shapes are flexible, and which are rigid bones. These animals typically follow the pattern of rigid, flexible, rigid, flexible, rigid. The flexible neck and belly can be seen as tubes, like macaroni. The head, shoulders, and hips are more boxy - you can't distort them as much, but you can rotate them, as the legs move. The legs are all rigid, bony tubes. The rear legs tend to look a bit like chicken legs.

LEVEL 1 ASSIGNMENT - Animal Portraits with 10 Shapes

In this lesson, you must break down your animal into 10 shapes or less.

LEVEL 2 ASSIGNMENT - Draw an Animal out of Circles, Boxes, and/or Triangles

LEVEL 3 ASSIGNMENT - Animal Portraits, Varying Your Shapes & Changing Poses