One of the most valuable things I learned from my recent private mentorship with the legendary sculptor Simon Lee was the world of body language and movement, something that I’ve unconsciously must have bypassed growing up as an artist because of how radically it changed how I perceived the world around me and how I design my characters now. All these years I’ve always just focused on the design aspect of my monsters, but never the performance aspect. I’ve learned that you can know your anatomy very well but still have your characters look lifeless because of the lack of body language and movement. Understanding anatomy but not knowing how to use that structural knowledge for performance is a huge waste. It’s like having a muscular body but not knowing how to run, jump, and swim. What good is having a body if one does not know how to use it? With performance comes emotion. With emotion comes storytelling. What separates the living from the dead? Movement, as it is the essence of life. Master the art of movement, and you can breathe life into anything.

Here is a simple sculpting study regarding nothing but body language and movement for just the torso. Even without access to the arms and legs, a lot can still be said and felt based on the natural rotations of the pelvis, ribcage, and head. The body language and movement of a person says a lot about them. If emotion and movement are interlinked, one can know the truth of a person by simply paying attention to how they move. Words can lie, but movement always reveals the truth.

Created Using: ZBrush, Marmoset Toolbag, & Photoshop