Stop Motion Character Walks

After completing the basic walk, I had to create a character walk. I did 2 to try out different things, such as arm movements, size of the step, head bob, posture, etc. Just changing these things slightly can drastically change the overall expression and look of the walk.

I first planned to do a large stepped walk, and I drew out a rough version in my notebook in case I got confused of where I was in the cycle. I wanted the steps to be so low that the head would bob up and down dramatically. Additionally, I wanted the knee lifting into the step to go a lot higher than in a natural walk. I wasn't sure what to do with the hands, so I made them trail behind the body. 

My outcome was alright, however it looks like the character is dragging something. This wasn't intentional, and I think the trail of the hands was the main problem. If the hands were in front, then it may have looked like my character was trudging through some snow instead. Also, as the steps were so big, I couldn't fit on 5 steps.

So next I tried doing smaller steps. I wanted to make the character look authoritative, so I placed the hands on the hips and had the back arched. I wanted to then counteract this with very small steps for an interesting character walk.

At first the walk was going well, but near the middle the steps are so small that the figure appears to be going backwards a little, or as if they are fighting the wind. I am happy with the posture and head tilted up, however the figure appears to be shrinking slowly throughout the walk. I think I bent the wrong joint when trying to make the posture high, and therefore the figure got 'squashed'. To improve I could do this walk again, but use the drawing tool in Dragonframe to make sure the head stayed at the right height.