August 29, 2012
Ralphy's Walk Cycle
Hello! Sorry for the lack of updates for a while. It's the end of the summer, which usually tends to get pretty busy. Nonetheless, here is a walk cycle I did earlier on this summer of my character Ralphy from the last character design assignment in first year. There are lots of things wrong with this walk cycle, but I don't think I'll fix them. The head, for example, tilts far more in one direction than it does in the other direction. The character also feels rather weightless: he isn't really rising much higher off the ground, when he's supported by one foot. Still, there are several things I am happy with, such as the tail and the legs. I didn't end up putting the arms on, but they are meant to be sticking straight out, swinging back and forth, showing the curiousity of this little dino :) Okay, enough talk: here's the animation.
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Actually those flaws you refer to are not always a bad thing especially if you are trying to convey clumsiness. Kind of like when you design a character, like a goofy looking one. Sometimes its good to draw one eye larger, an ear more crooked then the other est.
ReplyDeleteSometimes its good for animation to have a boil too.
But it all depends what you are trying to do after all.
But you know, it works with your dino.
Have fun in school. :D
BTW I forgot to ask you out of curiosity.
ReplyDeleteWhat pencil test software do you use at school?
Thanks. :)
Thanks for the tips! I'll keep it all in mind for upcoming characters.
DeleteAs for the pencil test software, we use Flipbook. A little buggy, but it's simple and fast at what it needs to do.
Ah that does sound familiar. When I was in class I used a program called CTP. It had a little cartoon devil as a mascot. For the likes of me I don't know why. But anyways the college rented it every year. It was a good and practical program. Now if I want that for my self and to get the full program I would have to shell out a humungous wad of cash. Anyways here's a link to it so you can see. http://www.dbsys.de/ctp.html Sorry its in another language. But there are also free programs out there as well. I have been tempted to download a program called MonkeyJam. Don't know if its any good but it pretty much as every thing, even camera moves except for multiple cell colouration. You have to do that separately in your own programs like Illustrator. In case you're interested, here's another link. http://monkeyjam.org/
ReplyDeleteEnjoy. :)
Cute character, must be fun to be at Sheridan, I got accepted there awhile ago, but didn't end up going wish I did. You guys should check out deja view, Andreas blog if you haven't seen it. One thing that always helped me was playing film and cartoons in slow motion. If there is a slow scene don't draw all the frames, film it in 6s or something. Then later if there is time go back and fill in the drawings. BTW, animation is never just 2s or 1s, its always mixed, slow scenes even in Disney movies have 3s thrown in, then if they move quick 1s are put in, in certain places. But the truth is no studio uses all 1s, the exception maybe was Roger Rabbit, that was it. Of course anime has like 4s and 3s, holds all over he place. But the more complex the drawing it is better to do a lot of it on 3s, only when the motion speeds up, then add the 2s in, and a few 1s, once it slows down, put the 3s right back in, if the movements become really close together do it in 4s, the audience wont know, and it saves a lot of extra drawing you wont have to do.
ReplyDeleteNice drawings with Bridgman, that is a real help because he teaches you to think 3 dimensionally, Frazetta is really helpful too, his roughs and ink work, and John Buscema has amazing sketches. Another secret too, is learning to draw everything from imagination not copying. Yes you study all the time, but you study in a way that is designed to get you to be able to draw the human figure without looking at anything. Doing a short comic is helpful for that too, doesn't have to be finished, and if your forcing your self to draw everything from memory yes somethings wont always look perfect, but who cares your going to get better then the other people. If you can draw an appealing perfect male or female out of your head with life in it from most any angle, drawing anything else will be pretty easy.
What they will tell you is do life drawing till your face is blue or go to the zoo sketch from life. Yes its important no doubt, but learning to draw everything from imagination is way more important, but they never tell you that, that is a secret.
Certain artist out there that drew from imagination are, Hal Foster, Frank Frazetta, Hayao Miyazaki, comic artist like Jim Lee J.Scott Campbell, Don Bluth for animation, of course Milt Kahl is amazing but they did Rotoscope a lot at Disney. Henrich kley, and in my opinion John Buscema said he drew from imagination so much he was sick of it and just wanted to draw a still life or copy something. There is a lot of good books on John where you can see his sketches, the Artistry of John Buscema facebook group has most of them as well in the archives.
Wow, long comment! Thanks :) I follow Andreas' blog as well: it's very, very nice!
DeletePlaying stuff in slow motion has always been interesting for me. With today's software it's actually really easy to do, most of the time.
Drawing from memory is definitely good. I'm not very good at it, as I usually tend to draw the same pose without really thinking of something original. I'm working on that :)
Thanks for all the tips! I'll definitely keep them in mind!