Journals
Friday,Oct 22 2004, 11:07:46 AMstick figures at their best Probably almost...
stick figures at their best
Probably almost every one of us started our first crude scribbles by drawing stick figures. I can still remember when art teachers during my grade school years often instructed our class to doodle around on a piece of paper as a way to cultivate our creative sides. And thanks to my primitive artistic skills back then, rueful, funny-looking stick characters were the most that I could come up with. Sadly, I never really came close to perfecting the technique on drawing full human figures…
In fact, every time I try to draw human faces, they almost always end up looking like they’re missing a chromosome. I’m just not destined to be the realistic artist that I hoped to be. My drawings are desperately classified to the likes of Picasso. As most of us are aware, Picasso was one of the leading pioneers of cubism—an art form that I can find solace in the fact that my pencil-drawn skewed faces can at last be considered absolutely normal (talk about the perfect excuse), if not actual pieces of art.
While browsing the Net, I stumbled on a flash video titled Xiao Xiao. It’s about the adventure of an animated stick figure that does nothing but be involved in endless and totally meaningless kung fu fights. I love it. Much to my delight, it has a series.
(Note: Right-click the flash below, and select "play" if you want to see it)
The man behind Xiao Xiao goes by the name of Zhu, who has got to be a genius for successfully creating an animation of pure entertainment out of plain characters. I greatly appreciate how he managed to animate these stick people so smoothly, almost flawlessly, and squeezed what little juice left in these sticks, making Xiao Xiao as one of the best stick figure animation ever created.
To people for whom Net surfing is very much a part of their daily lives, Xiao Xiao is likely to be old news due to its ubiquitous presence over the Web. There are a bunch of spoofs out there, but so far, Xiao Xiao has nine official episodes (can’t hardly wait for the 10th).
Since I have a passion for martial arts movies, seeing Xiao Xiao’s magnificently detailed fight scenes readily caught my attention. The scenes start with kick-arse kung fu fights for no apparent reason—senseless indeed, but amusing, nonetheless. Well, I couldn’t even care less about Xiao Xiao’s lack of a solid storyline. All that matters to me is the series’ undeniably awesome animation embedded with an exquisite fighting choreography reminiscent of eastern kung fu flicks.
Personally, watching the Xiao Xiao series gave hope to my drawing skills. Stick figures can be fun after all. Guess I may never learn to draw human forms with realistic details, but I’ll be more than contented to stick with my abstract drawings composed of sticks (like I have a choice).