Ryan Woodward

It is evident in Ryan Woodward's work that he has studies human figures in details, and is well versed in gesture drawing. This helps in animation a lot to capture movement and action, rather than just moving a stationary figure in a detailed but stiff way.

You can already see in his drawings/animations where he begins to construct his figures, with emphasis on the direction of movement and the character's centre of gravity. This allows his figures to move accurately. His style of animation uses less line and detail for parts of the body that don't matter at that current time, or that are in the middle of movement making the whole figure flow better. They almost look liquid at times, bringing a sense of grace and romance to his work.

Profile Pitch from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.


Candy - Test Animation from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.



Amor a Vida - alt version from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Both of these animations swap between an average movement speed and an extremely fast speed, making the solid lines of movement much more effective than just speeding up accurate drawings of specific limbs and such. This must take a lot of care and planning while animation to get the timing and placement of these lines right, and it is only be the knowledge and practice of gesture drawing and the human figure that someone could achieve something that flows as well as these animations.