I think this could allow for more complex drawings to be introduced in a project. We can also add secondary lines of direction, creating a skeleton of sorts.I have been experimenting with this for a couple of weeks, and developed a technique to enable a user to create and color line work intuitively, without having to worry much about how well these object will animate in Synfig. The main lines of direction in both examples seem like a central spine for both plants. I’m using a line of direction due to the lack of movement in both examples. In both examples, we can easily define a main line of direction. Let’s take a look at some examples below: Otherwise, you’ll use lines of direction to define the angle or direction of the plant. When plants are being pushed around by the wind, it is perfectly fine to use lines of action. But plants do get blown around on windy days. Or they don’t move fast enough for us to notice. Plants are technically living things, but they don’t exactly move. Plants: Lines of Action or Lines of Direction? Once I achieve clean line-art, I’ll shade the tones in to finalize my drawing. If I need to make any corrections, I’ll do so. Then I’ll clean her up a bunch and emphasizes what I want to stand out. Not only is it a lot easier to work with, but it lets you quickly work out the proportions.Īfter establishing my stick figure, I’ll flesh out my figure using basic geometric shapes. My secondary action lines in blue, allowed me to capture the direction and movement of Aiko’s arms and left leg.įor those of you with little to no experience in drawing the human figure, most artists will start with a stick figure. Using the primary action line, in red, I was able to quickly capture her crouching position. In the next step, I used my action lines as the basis of my new stick figure. In the first step to our left, I drew out the lines of action to best capture Aiko’s movement. Let’s walk through the steps of a typical figure drawing: This will be the basis of your human’s pose. Whenever you begin a figure drawing (unless you’re really great at drawing people), you’ll normally begin with your primary line of action. As you draw, you’ll begin to pick up on these S-shapes. In the image above, you’ll notice the S-shape I marked out from the arms. Lines of action will be beneficial in capturing these movements. Think about how people move, especially in comic books and manga. When it comes to people, lines of action are essential. You’ll begin to spot these secondary lines of action in humans later on. For example, the kitten to our left has a secondary line of action that flows from front paw to front paw, in a stretched-out U-shape. The kittens’ secondary lines of action, just as I mentioned previously, follow the motions created by the limbs of the kittens. Could that had been a valid main line of action? I could have also drawn a curve from the cat’s head to tail. The mainline of action that I captured from the kitten to the right is the action that I saw. Why is that? Even though the primary line of action usually follows the spin of any given subject, our goal is to have it capture the whole of the subject’s motion and direction. But the kitten to the right has its main line of action running from the tip of its tail to its front right paw. You’ll notice the kitten on the left has its main line of action drawn from head to rear. Kittens with their main and secondary lines of action marked out.Ībove are two kitty-cats with both of their main lines of action marked out, and their secondary lines of action marked out. Thanks to the Line of Action, we can quickly capture the pose and motion of people, animals, and plants. Unlike the axis or the line of direction of an object, the Line of Action is much less rigid and will be curved in shape. The Line of Action is an imaginary line that we use to capture the motion and/or direction of any living, moving creature.

The Line of Direction is to inanimate objects as the Line of Action is to animate objects. This idea will become more obvious when we get into the Line of Action.

Think of an axis as a bone, and the line of direction as a spine. In the meantime, I want you to understand that the central axis of each shape is important to the construction of your drawings. This will become handy when we get in perspective. Each piece of the hammer is shown to have its own axis which it rests on. But take a close look at how I broke down the hammer. Okay, my hammer’s a little more than rough. An example of a hammer with multiple axes.

Inkscape tutorials drawing bones