Research Into Walk Cycles

Dan had showed us the 101 Dalmation opening which is one of my favourite parts within the whole film. I loved watching the comparison between characters and their walks as well as how the animators managed to make the dogs mimic this too. It clearly showed variations of personality, age as well as shapes and sizes.

Here's the link:

Initially for the side profile walk, I would constantly walk, start moving in slow motion then pause to think about my positioning. This was what influenced my first and second tests.


I did the second test mid way because I felt I needed to start a fresh to think properly about movements, but many people seemed to prefer the first one by far.



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The third test I did was based on the sheet that Mike had sent via email. With its help, I was able to create a quite cheerful character that I was pleased with.

This was the final one I decided on.




For the perspective walk, I took some footage of my friends.











I found that heels really affects the way you walk and is very distinctive which is why I decided to base my character on her. I felt her love for high heels showed confidence in her walk and wanted this to be portrayed in my animation.





When I was filming this, I asked her to exaggerate her walk more for me because everything has to be described through the walk alone.





After looking at the footage of Priscilla walking, I tried to think how I would characterize her and did a few experimentations.



My designs were influenced by our Life Drawing lessons. Using geometric shapes have helped very much with my animation due to the fact that I am able to think of my character 3 dimensionally and can give my characters more realistic movements. Here are examples from Life Drawing:





Afterwards I tried thinking about twists, but I felt I would manipulate the torso so much that the frames would look out of place. This was one of the reasons why I chose not to include it as well as the fact it was difficult to do twists with cylinders. Regardless, here is some sketches of when I was thinking about incorporating twists.

Some old work

I've been reflecting on things, and realised how important it is to upload some of my work so I figured I shall share some old ones.


Fishes on a Journey by ~0percentangel on deviantART

This was a fine art GCSE exam piece which now I look back on, I quite like. I based some of the patterns on the aboriginal style and used various techniques to describe its journey.


Self-portrait by ~0percentangel on deviantART

This was a piece of coursework for Fine Art at AS level. I was really pleased with how this came out. The technique I used here was layering paint to create the colours, rather than blending.


AS Art Exam Piece by ~0percentangel on deviantART

This was an exam piece for Fine Art AS Level. Drawing in ink was not something I was use to but once I got the hang of it I really liked the effect and cleanliness it had. I have to say this was the first time I truly enjoyed art exams.

Everyone says this is one of the best drawings I've done on Photoshop which is ironically one of the first sketches I did using my Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet. I am quite pleased with it, but I somehow edited the file where a layer was deleted and never felt to continue in completing this. This was taken from a picture on Deviantart of a kitten that I just thought was absolutely gorgeous. It's eyes were so captivating that I was inspired to try and draw it. Bare in mind, I started and gave up on this atleast a year ago.

The technique I used, was to draw every strand of hair on the fur, and for the eyes I used a low opacity and the blur tool to blend.

 

This is the latest drawing I have done on Photoshop. I'll admit I have been VERY lazy and not continued. I guess, I've felt disheartened by the fact I can't seem to do things as well as other people. Even when I try, it never seems to turn out the way I'd like it to.

Here is the working process on a drawing of my boyfriend. At the moment I am quite proud of how accurately I've drawn him but the colouring is SO difficult and time consuming! I just get so frustrated and give up because I feel it looks terrible. Hopefully I'll pick up the motivation again soon.

This was done on Photoshop CS2 with my Wacom Graphics Tablet. I can't quite remember the brush sizes, maybe variated between 15 pt and 30. Sometimes as minimal as 5pt. 

The Beginning

I'm not exactly new here, but I thought I'd dedicate an account to just my work alone rather than for personal reasons. I just want my work to get out there, to share my passion for drawing. So here I am, making a start to expressing myself artistically.