Walk cycle (and slowly going insane.......)

Well Ive had an interesting few weeks. The aim of this project is to understand the fundamentals of the walk cycle.

We started this project with some observational drawings of the general public walking through park. I saw quite a few interesting characters, including a wee boy sitting on his mums shoulders grabbing her face for dear life! It was good to focus on the movement of peoples bodies and see how different characters walk.

So! after all those drawing studies I decided to really use them to their full potential and animated a potatoe.........

For whatever god damn reason I just thought a potatoe with legs was BLOODY HILARIOUS! for my first animation I did the key frames and then poor Toby had to deal with my weirdness and do the inbetweens. 

I found this potatoes swagger to be a bit dare I say.....sexy. So naturally I put a pair of fishnets and high heels on him (hes a crossdressing potatoe). And I think he looks pretty dang sassy!

Sexy Tattie from amy bruning on Vimeo.

Then after that I thought Id give him a bit of grace and anointed him with the power of dance!

I used this video as a reference

Tattie Ballet from amy bruning on Vimeo.

By this time I'd had just about enough of walking tatties, I decided to do a continuation of a bouncing ball project I had done previously. Say hello to little Jacky boy!

Jacky Boy from amy bruning on Vimeo.

When Maya had completely melted my brain I gave myself a wee break and indulged in a bit of cheeky doodeling. This attractive wee character popped up and I couldn't resist animating him. I think he looks like a homeless drunk Monsters Ink character, I think he'd get on well with my fishnet clad tattie.

Purple dude from amy bruning on Vimeo.

he took on a bit of a different look and character in the animation

Next up my favourite thing ever.....Maya!!!!!! Ive no idea how you type sarcasm but if I did that statement would be dripping with it. I don't really know why but me and Maya aren't too fond of eachother. I cant really get a creative connection with it, it just doesn't seem to inspire me. I'm not really that dazzeled by CGI films anyway so that is possibly why Maya  just doesnt do it for me. reagardless here are my (questionable) attempts at Maya walk cycles. 

First up I was getting to grips with using the software and as you can see I got a perfectly realistic walk cycle. (theres that invisible sarcasm again). Yeah I was just having a bit of fun and being a big wierdo as usual

After that moment of madness I got into attempting to get the walk cycle done. This one was a failure, although it does look like he is kicking something but that wasn't really what I was going for.

This is probably my most successful walk cycle, although I'm still not that happy with it but here it is. 

So yeah that was Maya.....moving swiftly on! Next up is stopmotion. Normally this is one of my favourite ways to work but I had a couple issues with making my armature and unfortunately it did hinder my walk cycle a bit. I also confused myself with the arm movements so my wee dudes walk is a bit mental looking but I think the basic leg movements are okay. 

I wanted a bit of a camp flamboyant walk, which I think I achieved to an extent but he does look a bit deformed. The screw kept coming out of his foot so I had trouble keeping him balanced. 

a second attempt with a bit of padding added to the model

I did really enjoy this project, even with the drawbacks I really had a great time. The final outcome isn't perfect but I learned alot and think my animating skills have gone a long way. I even got a few laughs during the crit and as my Mother always says "Yae canny beat a good laugh" so there was a definite Humor Victory! What more could you need?