Motion Studies - Quadruped Walk Cycle

This week I had to animate a quadruped walking, either in a cycle or across the screen. We could choose any animal, but it was advised to choose a dog as there are lots of dogs in Falmouth, therefore lots of references. However, I really wanted to animate a cat, so I got my dad to record my cat walking as my reference.

Here's the reference video for this animation. As you can see, my cat isn't the most energetic cat ever, but this worked in my favor as she was so slow that it helped me work out her movements.

I also looked online for cat walk cycle references, and found this image. It was helpful, however most of the images were running cycles, so having my own reference video helped a lot. I wanted to use Richard Williams 'The Animation Survival Kit' book, but the section on animal walks was very small and it only had dog and horse examples. I did use it to help me place the feet for the right timing. 

I started off my animating the legs in the foreground. As it is my first time animating an animal walking, I kept it simple and made the legs walk in unison, instead of making the legs have a delay. In reality, quadrupeds' legs have a delay so they don't move together at the same time. I wanted to do this, but I felt it was better if I tried to get the overall movement and structure in this animation, and I can explore the delay later.

I was going to redraw the legs in the background, when I realised I could just copy the legs from the foreground and move them so the legs moved in circles. I then added shading to the back legs so it's easier to tell which legs are which.

I then added the head, and kept the movement to a minimal as I wanted to focus on the movement of the legs. I didn't copy and paste the same head for each frame as it would've stood out compared to the legs and body.

Finally, I added the tail. We didn't have to animate tails, however I found my cat looked weird without one. I think the tail movement could improve, but I wasn't focusing on it for this animation. I just wanted to get the legs right.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how this turned out. I animating it quite quickly, much quicker than the figure walk cycles. Maybe it's because I've started animating again so I'm remembering all I did in the last semester. I think what really helped me to do this task was a good reference video, and I will definitely spend time making sure I have good reference videos for future tasks/animations.