Animal Walk Cycle

Animal Walk Cycle - Black Bear

 

 

 

For this assignment, we were to create a walk cycle for a four-legged creature, skeleton up. I came out with the black bear. I'm told it looks a bit like he's trudging through mud, and that may be because in my reference videos the bears were walking through tall grass (which made foot placements tricky too). Overall I think it functions well.

The 'Winnie the Pooh' gag at the beginning was meant as a joke for my classmates. Knowing it would be shown in a presention of everyone's assignments, I wanted to fake people out into thinking I'd done a very stupid, poorly done cycle. After that I just decided to do a fun, super loose morph into the actual black bear cycle.

Master Copy Painting

Master Copy Painting - Tarzan

 

This assignment was to try to copy a master background painting used in a short or film. I chose one from Tarzan, and I think it turned out pretty close. Biggest problem is that the ropes are a bit too thick and bold, but that was difficult to rectify after they were already put down. Overall I was happy with it.

Bird Walk

Multi-plane Bird Walk Cycle

 

 

Here's the bird walk cycle again, this time digitally coloured and placed into a multi-plane pan. One of the first digitally coloured animations I did, traced over the pencil test in ToonBoom Harmony. Bonus walk after the jump.

Walk Cycle

Walk Cycle - Bird

 

 

This was our first walk cycle using an original character. To keep things familiar, it had to keep similar dimensions to that of the Pink Panther, and so I came up with this bird design. It took a few tries to get a natural lunging motion and the proper bobs in the head and tail, but I think it turned out nicely. The extra animation at the end, specifically when the bird un-pretzels himself, definitely took the most effort.

Walk Cycle

Walk Cycle - Pink Panther

 

 

My first walk cycle. To ease us into it, the keyframes for the Pink Panther were provided and we worked on the in-betweens. The horizon line was required. It makes the entire upper body look stiff as a board, but those were the frames we were given. In retrospect, maybe having it intersect the body at leg-level would have helped to avoid the problem.

Toronto Zoo

Toronto Zoo - Animal Life Drawing

Our other animal life drawing trip was to the Toronto Zoo, and though I'm still no expert at life drawing, I think I improved by this point. Full collection of gestures and studies after the break.