Stick figure
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A stick figure is a very primitive type of drawing, generally of the human form, although stick figures of other types of animals are possible (for example, a stick figure dog). In a stick figure, the head is represented by a circle, sometimes embellished with details such as eyes or crudely-scratched-out hair. The neck, arms, legs and torso are all represented by single straight lines (thus the name). The neck and torso are different segments of one straight line.
Generally, stick figures are drawn by hand with a pen or pencil and have hard, defined edges. Though not displaying very much detail, what is drawn is generally required. For instance, if one was to draw a person, the person's eyebrows would generally only be drawn to provide a sort of facial expression, be it of anger or shame.
Stick figures have proven effective as a source of advertising, entertainment and as a form of storyboarding and practice for filmwork. This is especially crucial for creating "animatics", as a film special effects team is then able to visually display the outcome of a scene by using stick figures, but saving in money, time and effort of providing a completed shot, but only having to have the necessary information provided.
Contents |
[edit] Examples
One famous example of stick figures is found in the Sherlock Holmes short story The Adventure of the Dancing Men. This story features cryptograms that are represented as a series of stick figures.
In Unified Modeling Language, stick figures are used to represent actors (people or things that are using a computer system to do various things in different roles) in the Use Case diagrams. One famous stick figure, or an approximation thereof, is Mr. Game & Watch, who features in several Nintendo-produced video games. The MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing also features stick figures, its whole appeal being based upon the simplicity of the drawings, and the teen/adult humor associated with each image.
Stick figures are prominent in the Xiao Xiao Flash cartoon series, as well as other Flash cartoons involving stick figures using martial arts such as Stick Figure Death Theater.
Stick figures are also often used in message boards. They can be typed in a simple way. The top can be made with "\O/" the middle can be made with "l" and the bottom can be made with "/ \". The stick figure can then be altered in many ways to make them do funny, and often inappropriate actions.
[edit] Flash animations
Stick figures are typically a form of vector art, in relevance to ones viewed on the internet, so stick figure movies are often created in Macromedia Flash. Stick figures are somewhat frequently used because they are easy to draw and can depict deep amounts of action. Although they're often drawn in a 2D environment, 3D is sometimes simulated.
[edit] PowerPoint Animation
Microsoft PowerPoint can also be used to make stick figure movies. This works very well if you do not have Flash. By making a slide with a stick man in it, copying and pasting a new slide and changing the new slide you can create a movie, although without key frames and tweening, it is a much more laborious process.
[edit] See also
- The Order of the Stick - Web comic in stick figure style
- PowerPoint animation
- Stick Figure Death Theatre - Flash entertainment site featuring sticks meeting their doom
- TISFAT, stick figure animation software.
- Pivot Stickfigure Animator
[edit] External links
- Stick Figure Deaths at the Open Directory Project
- Stick Page, a variety of stick-figure cartoons and movies
- HallPass, a directory of stick-figure animations that users can vote for
- Stick Death directory of stick death animationsde:Strichmännchen
