Motion Studies - Walk Cycle

Today I started my Motion Study classes, and picked up where we'd left off from the last module. My last 2D task was to animate a figure walking across the frame. This time I need to animate a walk cycle, and have the figure look angry using posture and movement. I was quite confident at first as my walking animation from the last module had good feedback, and I completed it quickly. However, I soon found it was harder than I expected. I think the problem was I hadn't animated much over Christmas, so I was out of practice. I didn't manage to get any good results in class, so I tried again later but this time using my Animation Survival Kit and Timing for Animation books.

I kept it simple by first just animating the legs and feet. I drew out markers so I could keep the feet moving at equal distances. Again, I struggled a lot with the timing, spacing and overall movement, but I used a reference video this time and that seemed to help.

After working out the legs I added the body, closely looking at the reference video. I wanted there to be a sense of movement, so I kept the lines loose.

I then added the second part of the cycle by duplicating the frames and editing the position of the arms and legs for it to become a cycle.

The final result of this test:

I am pleased it looks like the figure is walking, and there is some movement. However, it maybe seems like the figure looks happy rather than angry. Additionally, the connection between the last frame and the first frame is quite obvious, and the arms move very quickly when they are spread out. Also, the volume isn't consistent. I am planning on doing another test and a final version, I just did this test so I could be more comfortable with the movement and overall task.

Reference Video: