Walk Animation
References
I started by gathering references of people walking and looked at still images of animated walks as this helped me figure out how the limbs swing as well as how the head dips.
After I gathered my references, I decided to go for the teenage hooligan walk as I liked the motion and the way the body moves.
Walk Animation Character
When I designed the character, I made sure to add flowing parts to create some nice secondary animation. While animating the walk I decided to change the hair to a bun instead of it being down.
Walk Animation Stages
I first tried to animate the movement from a three quarter view but found the movement to look weird and the body seemed to move back and forth, so I restarted the animation from the side which I found easier to do.
I started by blocking out the basic walk cycle, with the arms down beside the body, as I refine the animation, I want to add a bat in the character’s hand.
The next pass was to roughly block out the bat swinging onto the character’s shoulders.
I added inbetweens to the block out to refine the motion as well as fix the bat swing as it looked a little stiff. I also fixed the timing to give the bat swing more time as it was moving too fast.
In this pass I added the line art for the character and worked on the secondary animation, I made the hair bounce as he walked as well as making him blink and smile while walking.
For the last pass I added colour to the animation.
Overall, this animation came out well, the walk looks smooth, and the body has a good amount of bounce to it however the bat does jump behind his head, I would have needed another inbetween to make that flow more smoothly.
Run Animation
References
I gathered references for the run cycle from the internet. I used both videos and still images.
I mainly used the slow motion running video, it was very helpful as the movement is in slow motion making it easier to figure out the positions of the body and how the person bounces while running.
Run Animation Character
For the run character I wanted him to have a ponytail as this would bounce when he runs.
Run Animation Stages
Using my references, I blocked out the run animation, after finishing the block out I noticed the body move back and forth a little, I will fix this in the next pass.
After blocking out the movement I added inbetweens to the motion to make it smoother and worked out the timing of the animation. I also added secondary animation to the hair bouncing and sweat dripping.
I added colour to the final run animation.
I like how this animation turned out, the movement looks natural, and the character looks like he has weight and is not floaty. However, I do think the front shoulder moves to straight and looks a little weird.
Body Mechanics Animation
For the body mechanics animation, I decided to animate two characters fencing. I gathered references from documentaries about fencing as well as tutorial videos.
Body Mechanics Character
I used real fencing uniforms as my reference for the character.
Storyboards
I made some storyboards to figure out what moves I wanted the characters to do.
Body Mechanics Animation Stages
After finishing the storyboards, I made an animatic, I used this animatic for my block out.
Next I started the add line art to the animation. I decided to focus on one character at a time as I found this to be easier than jumping between both.
I then added line art to the second character, I did not add the hand with the sword as I wanted to use the same sword drawing for both characters and this would prevent the sword from warping while I worked on the characters
I added the swords to the characters and worked out the timing of the animation.
The final stage was to add colour to the characters.
Overall, I am incredibly happy with the outcome of this animation, the movements flow well and the timing looks good. However, the grey character’s proportions do warp a little when he raises his sword.