Harry Potter tilts his head

I was sketching this morning, doing warmup sketches, and I was noticing how little stuff, like the tilt of a head, communicates a lot. It also seems like head tilts, turns, and looks up or down make the drawings come to life. I think those things definitely make the drawings more interesting. So I said hey I bet I can write a post on it, and sound like I know what I'm doing, and like people should listen to me! I'll do some samples!

Also, some sketchcrawlers went to see Harry Potter 5 last night, and it was pretty great. They packed a lot of stuff in and left a lot of stuff out, but it was one of the better performances out of Daniel Radcliffe and the end was just fantastic.

So I drew Harry Potter talking to his bud Snape, to illustrate my point of head tilts being better and more interesting. Then I discovered that my point really wasn't valid, because each of the following drawings, instead of getting progressively more boring like I thought they would, just communicate different things. Whaddya know?


Subtext: "My dad did WHAT?"


Subtext: "You can't get away with this, Professor! Sooner or later YOU WILL PAY!"


Subtext: "Holy degreasifyin shampoo, Batman!"

So... failed hypothesis, but interesting discovery. I guess the point that I can pretend I was trying to make from the very beginning is that all these things communicate different things, just in how a character orients himself to another character, and it's good to mix it up and use them to drive home your points. Now that I look at it, Snape should probably have been oriented away from Harry and looking back at him, not facing him... more in character, I guess.