Cameron Fielding on using Reference

Cameron Fielding did a talk at the pixel challenge conference a while back. Pretty interesting. 

  Cameron Fielding - Using reference from iAnimate on Vimeo.


what's important to look at (when looking at ref)

forget about "what pictures do I need to understand this" (don't worry about antic and follow thru poses and stuff)

walt stanchfield's books, you look at the model once and then not again and you try and draw what struck you as important from their pose

we have to apply this exact same idea to reference

go through the ref picking out still frames to describe the video (like you were going to make a photo comic book of the ref)

not looking for story poses or extremes, looking for the things that make you want to animate the shot

these are the poses you are going to milk later, you are going to try the hardest to preserve these when your polishing

drawing helps to dispel mystery:
draw your first impression poses, it reveals to yourself what it is you like about the pose, you'll find yourself drawing the same bit over and over

you're trying to find what it is that's a struggle to draw, the thing you can't quite get is what you love about it, it'll give you a solid understanding of what part to focus on and is important when you take it to 3D
 
* found on animator's resource (which I just found and is full of gold)