Stickfigures

All art including human beings can be downsized to the plain and simple stickfigure. If drawing a storyboard for a movie, an animation for a comic book, or designing your Christmas card for Santa, you can start with a simple shape.

Stickfigure 1 This is the basic stickfigure. You can see the head, torso, arms and legs. You can't do much with this one, except practising the proportions of these body parts	Stickfigure 2 With this version you can do something more. You get to decide the proportions of the arm- and leg-parts.	Stickfigure 3 Now this must be the most advanced stickfigure there is: I bet you never saw any kid draw it this way! Added are the width of shoulders and pelvis.

Simple to Advanced Stickfigure
(source http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/farp/figure/williamlibodyconstruction.html)

The basics of a good stickfigure is that it is anatomically correct. It has a head, arms, legs, and a spine in the right proportions. Only then can we as a viewer relate to its emotions and behaviour.

A wonderful example of how a simple stickfigure can tell a compelling story is shown below.

Paper Wars by Ed Skudder

I will use stickfigures for drawing storyboards and visualizing ideas I have for movies.

I hope to show you some examples during my Christmas break.

Try if you can draw Santa as a stickfigure, or perhaps your cat or next door neighbour and see what great story there is to tell.