In Preparation of creating my walk cycle loops for my final animation,
I began by studying and
researching various ways that characters walk, and
taking into consideration my characters weight, height and specific body parts
which would have to be catered for. I searched through a vast amount of walk
cycles and character designs, until I got to this little gem.
It seemed as though
this walk cycle was perfect to help base my characters walk, for a number of
reasons. The main one relating to the fact that I wanted my character to be
rather short and podgy, and this little bird’s body was rather similar to what
I had in mind. I also found that as I was drawing up my own characters body,
based on this walk cycle, his belly would move from side to side, as if drawing
all attention to it, and making it seem even bigger than it was.

After I had created my
first successful walk cycle, I decided I wanted to give it a go at colouring
it;

colours and working my way up to doing complicated and more detailed colouring. However, I found that my characters colours were rather simple, and to try and simplify them anymore would cause them to not match the style of drawing I had done on them.
Here, it shows my first
final frame that has been coloured. I used a base colour in grey/brown, then
applied a light blue/white for the tail stripes and the fur on his belly and
face. I used a textured brush which I edited to make look like fur, which I
think worked very well on his body. I also added a dark grey to black colour on
his feet, which worked very successfully and made them look a little dirty,
which it turn makes him look more like a wild animal, rather than a house pet.

This image shows in more
detail how the shadow looks on the character. I think it works really well,
when creating a shadow this way because of its opacity. The colours underneath
are still very visible, whereas if I’d simply put a black line as the shadow it
would have looked a lot less effective in my opinion. It also makes my
character look a lot 3-dimensional, which brings him to life.


Once
I had completed a walk cycle, and applied colour, I thought it best to try and
work on one of my more difficult characters. That character being Lola, the
fawn friend of Archie’s, and the soon to be killer of Archie as well. I really
struggled with putting together an idea of how to make her walk, as I
haven’t ever really drawn deer that much, due to their complicated bodies and stances. So I sought help from gifs of Bambi, which I then broke down and used as bases for my own character! I found this way to be so helpful, and I quickly picked up the specific body parts and areas which would need most defining and emphasis, like I did with my first loop. I didn’t copy the cycle too accurately in this image, as they depict a fully gown deer walking, and I wanted to add the cautiousness and speed of a young fawn.

However, I persevered,
and was able to create a full, and working, 20 frame cycle, which shows the
deer cautiously walking forward. I added a tiny bit of a head dip to my
character, which is JUST noticeable, but I didn’t want to create too much of a
fuss with parts of the body other than the legs at the moment. One thing that
did bug me about this walk cycle was that the images seemed to get bigger as
the frames went on, which is probably down to my poor tracing skills. I managed
to correct this by taking each individual frame and used the transform tool to
make every single one of them the same size.


Once I had finished my
first deer walk cycle, I then went on to using it as a base for the horrific
makeover it was about to get;
I started off by drawing a simple line on my
canvas, to ensure that all the frames were going to be the same size and I
wouldn’t somehow make them all bigger as the frames go on.
I then copied and
pasted one frame at a time, adjusting the size so that the character situated
itself perfectly on the line. I then “went to town” on erasing parts of the
body, and filling them in with different, horrific injuries that I plan on
giving to the deer.



After adding extra bones and effective the
movement of my character, I then went on to make the biggest impact of my
character;

I then went on to add multiple creases in the edges of her joints and
skin. I think this makes the character look a lot more run down, almost as if
she was sagging due to the nature of her health. I also added a kind of splat
effect print on her hip, I think it kind of lightens the mood on the animation,
as I don’t want this animation to be completely horrific! And the creases I
think work so well, making her look so much more decrepit and shows just how
much she is falling apart, and I also added a graze to the skin on her back
leg, just so I could tell the difference between the legs.

FINAL OUTCOMES:
Evaluation.
One a whole, I am really pleased with how all of my walk cycles have turned out. I used a digital format to create all of my frames and loops, which I haven’t done before, and experimented with making a gradual change to my character through the loop as well, which required a lot of attention to detail. I think I struggled slightly with keeping my frames all the same size and shape, because I was tracing and tracing and tracing an image constantly, and a result of this problem was the size of the deer's head changing and morphing slightly when in real life it would stick to the same size.
If I were to do anything different, I would try and trace out all the frames by hand first, to ensure that they were all the same size, and would also have the much smoother and sleeker lines that my hand-done pieces tends to have.
If I were to do anything different, I would try and trace out all the frames by hand first, to ensure that they were all the same size, and would also have the much smoother and sleeker lines that my hand-done pieces tends to have.
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