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- Since animation is a sequence of poses.

Creating good poses is a must have skill.

So let's study the different features that make a oppose

a good pose.

In the previous video, we have seen the line of action.

So clearly it's super important that your line of action

are clearly defined on all your poses.

It will help to read your poses.

It will help to read the flow of your animation.

So this is definitely the first thing you have to look after

when building your pose.

Senior, or the evolution of the line of action

clearly communicates the flow of the motion

and the emotion.

Second thing you have to look for, is balance.

Characters that look off balance will look weird

even to a non-animator.

You as an animator should know how to fix

enough balance pose or enough balance character

or a static pose.

A good technique is to draw a box

around the main feature of the body.

The ones that wait the more.

Since the main goal of balance is to fight gravity,

draw a straight vertical line in the middle of this box.

This line should basically come across

your center of gravity.

If you don't have at least one contact point or better two

or three contact point under this line,

your character will look off balance.

In the case of three contact point or more,

the center of gravity, just has to be bind

to the triangle shape formed by those contact points.

When you have only two points of contact with the ground,

the center of gravity should come across the line

drawn by those two contact points.

Finally, when you have only one contact point

with the ground, your center of gravity

must be vertically aligned with this contact point.

Note that your center of gravity is not always centered

around your hips.

You have to take in account the weight of your legs,

of your arms whenever you're trying to balance yourself

by spreading your arms on the side

or whatever piece of equipment you are wearing.

The next important thing whenever you are building

a strong pose is silhouette.

It's the main feature that's gonna be identifiable

on your character pose.

While the inner shapes of your character might need other

to notice or to identify like the head of the character

on this pose.

Reading inner shapes will greatly depend on the quality of

the character design and its contrast.

A good practice is to have a dedicated

window in blender with a 3D view set to flat shading.

If you're animating to camera,

these should be the camera view.

This way you will always have a sneak peek

to the silhouette of your character.

Now that we know how to display our silhouette,

what makes a good silhouette?

The most important thing is readability.

The trident is currently a good example,

showing the three teeth or three points of the tridents,

make it clear on the silhouette view.

While if I rotate it by a few degrees and show its profile,

it doesn't read well anymore.

We no longer identify a trident, but simple spear.

If we scrub through the animation,

most of the poses are clear on this one, the legs,

the arms and the sword are clearly identifiable.

The same will apply to this pose

where we can clearly see that the character

is handling this weapon with two hands

or even this pose where through camera,

I slightly offset the position of the sword

so that it appear in the back of the character.

While I did the mistake on the specific pose

to not have a clear silhouette.

And I received this as a critique a lot of time.

And that's a bummer because this is one of the strongest

moment in the animation.

This could have been improved by slightly rotating

the whole character so that we can see more

of a profile of the character distinguishing both feet

and a bit of the arms.

Another principle that will help you build

a solid silhouette is simplicity versus complexity.

If we have a look to those different poses,

we can clearly see that one side of the character

has almost a straight line or a smooth curve.

While the opposite side of the character

is generally more detailed.

This will improve the appeal of your poses.

It will also improve their readability

by giving them an orientation

or at least giving them contrast.

We did talk a lot about contrast in our motion

whenever we have an odd and a fast transition

That's the same regarding posing,

simplicity versus complexity brings contrast.

And so it brings more interest into the pose.

Another important point regarding silhouette

is negative space.

Negative spaces are the holes in the silhouette

of the character.

When you have overlapping features like the arm crossing

the body of the character in this case,

make sure that you use those negative space to show the

different features that will help the viewer to identify the

different parts of the character.

Like the same here of the silhouette of the biceps

that allow us to clearly identify the hand

or the arm of the character.

You should also try to avoid tangent

on your character or on your silhouette.

On this specific pose, the leg get tangent

with the end of the spear

and why it's not the end of the world

that could be improved if the character was moved a bit

to one side or the other so that we have no tangent

between the leg and the spear

and we can clearly identify both features.

There is another pose that look decent,

but that will read better and it will be more appealing

if we were to separate a bit the silhouette of the legs

and break the tangent in the arms by showing the wrist

or an elbow, for example.

Avoid twinning in your poses.

Twinning occurs whenever you have two features of the body,

like the hands or the feet that have exactly

the same pose.

While it can be something you voluntarily create

to bring strengths to a pose

or to bring control into a pose

like on the beginning of this jump,

where everything about the body of our character

is symmetrical.

This is something you should live out.

For example on this pose,

both feet have a slight different of pose.

If I make them having the same pose,

it won't look as appealing as the previous one.

Twinning will bring a lot of stability

and so it will kind of break the momentum

or the contrast in the pose.

Twinning can also occur in timing.

For example here, my character is catching

both sword at the same time,

and this is a personal choice because I want to show that

he's perfectly knowing what he's doing

and mastering his art.

So twinning both in timing and in the pose can show

strength and stability.

But in the case of this jump for example,

if I was to make both feet arrive at the same time,

that will make the animation a bit less appealing

and interesting.

In the end twinning bring a sense of perfection.

And whenever you're achieving art,

what you want to avoid is perfection.

There is a lot of randomness in life,

and she's what we want to represent.

We want to make it alive, not to make something perfect,

something CG.

Another thing you should avoid are perpendicular lines.

If I take these pose that is decent

and I now make the arm perpendicular to the spear

by straightening the elbow,

making this pure vertical, that will look super stiff.

And if I even exaggerate despite straightening

the whole torso, the neck, the head,

or even the other arm that will look really bad.

And my last advice,

try not to hide any part of your character.

There will be many times where it's gonna be impossible,

but when you have the choice like on this pose,

make sure that we see a bit of the fingers.

Don't hide them into the silhouette.

Or on this other pose, the pose looks great.

But if I twist a little more the hand,

I won't be seeing the thumb anymore.

So the end will be harder to identify.

That's a little detail, but it will make the difference.

So whenever you are pausing your character,

make sure you hit all the notes in this video.

Watch full line of action that we have explained

in the previous video.

Watch for balance, make sure that your character

is not falling, especially if he's turning.

Be very aware of the importance of the silhouette.

Watch for readability of the silhouette.

Watch for simplicity versus complexity in your silhouette.

Use negative space, avoid the tangent.

Break twinning by angling a bit your character.

Break perpendicular lines,

avoid hiding part of your character.

In the next video, we will start building our first poses.