Don't worry. It's not gymnastics, but dynamic drawing.
A beginner will typically draw their figures with stiff joints - that means straight arms, legs, fingers and so on. That's not the natural way and it doesn't look exciting:
This is Koto with stiff joints
Here's what he looks like when his joints are bent
Both people and animals will always be bending their joints a bit. It doesn't matter if we're moving or standing still. We'll always have a slight bends in the elbows, wrists, knees etc.
So why do you need to know that? Well, if you soften the joints, you will have a far more natural looking drawing.
This also goes for imaginary creatures.
This is 'Eek', one of Koto's adversaries in Book 2 :
The Rats.
This is how many joints eek has.
I could draw him easily with stiff joints.
But if I really want my drawing to look alive, I need to try to get him to bend at every joint. Now that looks so much better, don't you think?
You might remember this picture from Book 1:Master Thief, where a knome throws a 'leaf' at Koto.
The leaf seems to be thrown out of the picture itself. That kind of depth is done with the use of perspective. If you want to draw difficult types of perspectives, it's always a good idea to draw the item in a box first.
The green lines are the ones that will point into the picture, when the leaf is drawn in perspective.
I'll start off by drawing the box in perspective and then fill in the leaf. Now I know the perspective is right.
When drawing in perspective all the lines pointing into the picture (the green ones) need to come from the same spot. That's called the vanishing point.
Naturally the knome also needs a lot of speed lines and some cool colours. That will do the trick!
