The walk cycle that took forever to do

There are times when I wonder if I am wrong in choosing animation Sometimes I miss making fine art or paintings. An I recently had great fun making illustrations of my characters in coloured pencils. But I am here. And I now want to review my animation work over the past month.

 

After my surprisingly good return to animation, making a walk cycle on a computer, as documented here https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/02/15/return-to-subject-first-week/ I was keen to get back to real animation with a pencle and paper. But that’s when my bad case of the mondays (Covered here  https://johnhawk.art.blog/2019/03/05/a-bad-case-of-the-mondays/ ) kicked in and my energy started circling the drain. I came in on Tuesday and was given my brief. Make a new walk cycle. This time showing a specific emotion. I chose anger and had a good time planning out the motions and posses. Things went okay at first. I made a walk cycle of 24 frames. Morgan was sceptical of my keyframes. He wanted a more exaggerated look to the whole thing. But I wanted to see if I could convey anger with very subtle movements.

I think the end result was okay. It moves way better than I thought it would and it has character.

But where it does lack is in the arms. They seem lifeless and don’t express much, and the movement on them is a bit choppy. Morgan did admit it was better than he thought it would be. But told me to redo the arms. Keen to learn. I complied. Even though it took me a week to finish.

 

I found the idea of doing the arm movements again terrifying. But I erased my old arms and got to work. But by this point the week was over and  the Archetype brief had begun. Keen to pull my weight, I still worked on the angry walk in my spare time. I eventually did the arms again and filmed them

Now he looks angry. Like he has something on his mind I even found myself really getting emotionally invested at one point. Felt the world fade away just leveling me and the animation. Which is what I want. It moments like those I believe I will be an animator.

I showed the result to Owen and he liked it but we both agreed something was wrong on the second swing. After a long time we agreed one of the arms had too much snap in it, It looked jarring, This is the sort of, harsh, no-holds barred honest critique I crave. Telling me how to do it right rather than just saying “It’s perfect because you did it your way”. I want to get better! Not to be told I’m fine.

 

I redid the last few frames the next day and here’s the result.

It doesn’t look as angry as the second one. But the movement is a lot smoother. It actually moves really nicely. It looks like it was made by a professional rather than a hack who isn’t sure if he’s on the right course.

Maybe I’ll tinker with it some more. Try to add some more punch to it. Or draw a character on top of the the stickfigure currently there. Who knows. I feel I’m far from done with this.

 

I’ve had to learn a bit about swings, cushioning and had impacts. But I struggle to remember where what applied or where I had to redo what. I hope some of it sticks in my subconscious at least.

 

Also. On the rare occasions I’ve had nothing to do I’ve been working on another walk cycle. 24 frames (one second) per-step. The what is basically hobby work I think it’s okay

It’s not meant to show any emotion or character. It’s just meant to have the buttery smooth animation I want to make. And that it does have. I do not believe computers have caught up to this level of smooth animation yet. And won’t anytime soon. It’s not even a walk cycle. It’s one step. But again, I want to do more with this. Turn it into a walk cycle or even turn it into a character. If only the idea of doing so much didn’t frighten me so.

 

Here’s to a more productive tomorrow.