Drawn to Life - Volume 2

51 Don’t Tell, But Show!

There’s a rule in the arts “Don’t tell, but show. ” Which means don’t just tell your audience about some event rather show them what is happening so they can participate vicariously. Applied to drawing from a model, sketching, or animating, it means it is not enough to record the facts of a subject’s construction and details, but it is important to show what the characters are doing.

Here is an overly simplied example. This is a hat.

This is a head.

I’m telling you what we are dealing with. Put the two together, and I’m ...