Hey obsidianvsyurei I know exactly where you’re coming from – because I’ve heard that same criticism before. They aren’t saying that you should stick to simpler looking characters (because you can spend a lot of time making a simple character look good), but that your focusing too much on how the drawing looks over the performance itself. If you find yourself spending way too long on one drawing during the initial first pass, then that’s something you can change up. The first pass should be as loose as possible – this is so that you can focus on the overall performance. This is where your thirty second life drawing/observational gesture drawings come to play.
Since you only have a short amount of time to capture your subject, your drawings should be really loose and that you’re trying to capture the gesture and energy of your supposed model. Don Hahn’s drawing life books elaborate more on this!
So with that being said, your first pass should first focus on the overall performance other than how detailed the drawings look. This means, create a short hand of your character!
With simpler shapes and more gestural lines, you can focus on things like squash and stretch, its easier to exaggerate your drawings; making your drawings bolder. You’ll notice that you feel more confident in animating something like a stick man over something with a lot of design beauty. So the thing to be loose and simple in your first approach.
Once you feel that your performance is solid, then you can add another pass on top of those roughs where you can finally tie down your drawings with a bit more detailed.
I know these aren’t the best examples since they don’t really showcase an acting/performance choice – but its the only files I do have that still has a first pass laid out hahaha!
Another practice you can do is to thumbnail all of your acting before you even start laying all the initial drawings. That can help you find the statements you want.
Anyways those are my two cents, hope this helps!
This applies to storyboard work as well. Great break down
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