Now isn't this a wacky one? This is my first walk cycle facing towards the camera, and it was difficult and easy to grasp.
I began this with a few key positions in photoshop, which I initially made in my head, before using myself as a reference for the walk. I took a video of myself in this wacky position, and it was odd to say the least.
My greatest struggles came with the legs and the belly. I wanted to get the right feeling of weight in that belly of his, so I did my best to use wise spacing, which was difficult for me, because I'm not the best when guessing spacing.
Also, for the legs, I tried using my reference, and a page from Richard Williams' book, "The Animator's Survival Kit".
However, I'd say the legs did not work out very well. They feel slide like and floaty.
Oh well, this was my first time, so there's always a next time for me to update this thing or do better with the next one.
I liked doing the arms; I thought they came out pretty well for my first time.
Overall, this was a fun project to work on, and I hope that my next endeavor comes out, even better!
Behold, my newest walk cycle. I haven't done one of these in months, and decided to now take the time and do one more. This new walk is the product of watching my Richard Williams videos and finding inspiration.
Richard Williams talks about how a walk cycle can be just about anything, so I did just that. I made this angry fellow with two contact poses of his body being bent upwards, with a passing position of him being hunched forwards, and his arms downwards.
I started with those simple lines and built on my foundation from there in Flash. I struggled with inbetweens, and getting the transitions just right.
(Oh, and for your information, this entire animation is on 12s. I can see why 8s appealed to many animators in the old days.)
Another problem I had was with the arms, and the bounce of the guy's head. With the arms, I found that they were moving at ridiculous speed that seemed unnatural at first. However, after toying a bit with the idea, I feel they are moving at an appropriate place, seeing at the guy is angry he would swing his arms fiercely.
Then there was the head, when I was doing the basic shape, I found the overall bounce this guy had was fairly unnatural. he would just come up and down so roughly. Reluctantly, I left that in and continued on into making the linework of the character himself, and I'm actually happy that I did.
When linework started, I had already decided on the design I wanted to use. A bald, skinny man, with a long nose and gigantic arms suited my purposed just fine. However, I wanted to be a little daring in how I animated this fellow.
I decided to do a few illusion tricks I had learned by studying perspective. I may have been rough in how I did it, but I'm happy I took the challenge.
I made the edge of his pants move up and down to capture the sense that he was shifting from left to right, I also would move his arms from the left and right, so as to show that he is turning his body as well. And his feet aren't on a completely flat dimension. Also, his head will shift from left to right as well (going back to my talk about how I was happy with how I did his head)
It was a tough effect to capture, and even then, it's fairly rough, but I'm happy with it now.
However, I think I'm done with just flat walk cycles for now. My next one will be a walk coming towards the camera. And thanks to some papers from a teacher of mine, I'll have an easier time attempting this.
