bruce lee: the hip toss

click on this^

So I have really been needing to gather new imagery for my book to accompany the text that I plan on using. I wanted to try and use some imagery that I had gathered from an old fighting book written by Bruce Lee. His original images are simple sketches depicting a sequence of events in order to complete this move, a hip toss. I cropped out these images and attempted to create an GIF animation, the first in a series of two animations. In connection with my beliefs on design I think that his illustrations serve as a perfect diagram. Initially in the book they are displayed without even a caption, and they don't need it. He keeps things simple and is able to demonstrate quite plainly a fairly complex movement. This movement would have been much more difficult to describe using words, as well as more difficult for the reader to understand. Lee bypasses this issue and communicates the concept through visuals. I initially didn't even realize how accurate these simple drawings were, until I began to line them up for animation. They flow together as though they were meant to be frames. His proportion is pulled off fairly accurately and his figures are simplified. I really liked this series in its initial context and think that it works well as an animation.