Keith Lango:
Power centres: (Reference:
CGChar)
"Well, I did a quick
study on power centers as to how they apply themselves to posing on my website.
The URL is .....
http://www.keithlango.com/powerCenter/powerCenter.htm
As to how that would play itself out in motion, Ed touched on it briefly in
contrasting the sleepy vs jumpy guy's reaction to a bee sting. First I'd find
the base power center for a given personality type. A laid back guy will have a
pretty lower power center, probably back in the butt. The visual impression
would be that even when he's standing up he looks like he could be lying down
(in an energy sense). Now, that's his default pose. (I'd probably even model him
with that basic line built into his mesh, at the very least in the spine and
through the shoulders). Everything that guy does will come from that point.
He'll occasionally be motivated to come out of that laid back default, but even
then he'll be true that that basic personality trait. A dragon chases him, he'll
certainly run away. But he'll run away in a fashion that seems almost laid back.
Not lazy or slow, just more calm. He may even scream, but it'll be a more calm
scream. If he's a humorous sort he might even find it to be sorta fun to be
chased by a dragon.
Meanwhile a skittish fellow could have a higher power center, up in his
shoulders and behind. I tend to think of the comedian Richard Lewis. That guy's
a nervous wreck, terribly insecure and he's always got these tense hunched up
shoulders, like he lives his entire life in one long flinch. Every move he makes
is a modified flinch. His gestures, his eyes, his speech, it's like he expects
life to constantly be physically whacking him in the back of the head. With that
macro emotional base in mind, I start thinking out how each micro emotional beat
and subsequent action would play out. It's fairly an intuitive process, but I
find getting in the head of the character, physically acting and putting myself
into that baseline state of theirs will start to generate ideas naturally. The
arms won't reach out quite as far or as easily because the shoulders are more
tense. That and to reach out is to open a weakness in the defense of his hunched
over being. I'd use that hunched, tense shoulder as the primary motivating and
limiting aspect of his motion. I'd experiement with how motions will look and
feel with the shoulders always tense. The neck will be more fowward and down,
even if his head is facing more or less forward and not down. The gestures will
be apologetic and "non threatening" in nature. Primary body lines of action in
dialog will be retreating from the subject he's talking to, not forward or
forceful. Really I find that once I get into that character's head, get up and
just live for a bit in their skin by assuming their basal macro emotional state
and putting my body physically into that base power center that this stuff just
starts flowing out. "