Animated Skycat: Traditional Animations Update (from school)

School and some proyects have taken my time away from writting on my blogg, but here I am again, trying to keep it up to date.

The next excercises are all part of the school course designed to teach a little bit of traditional animation, using Richard Williams' Animator's Survival Kit as a guide.

SIMPLE CAT DOING A SIMPLE WALK

Checking simple walks again, this time was required as an assignment. I think it came up better than the last ones I've done, considering that this time I solved entirely by myself, without books or references.

It is kind of fast and exaggerated, but hey, it is a cartoon after all =P

A FAT BEAR

Aaah this bear walking, I really enjoyed working on this one.
I wanted to work with weights, counteractions and some overlaps too, and a fat bear had all it was needed to do so.

I went through a lot of planning for this one, i had to:
>think about how his tiny legs would open to avoid tripping with his belly

>Show a good weight not just with size but with timming

I made these charts to figure out the poses and the extremes on the belly (curve). The curve shows how the weight shifts from left to right. Since the curve is not entirely symmetrical, the belly goes slowly to the side, then returns quickly to the center, and then goes again.

>Understand how mass remains static until something acts upon it (the leg pushes the belly forward and to the side)

>Have balanced poses through the walk cycle.

Here is the finished animation, the first gif has only key poses.

A HAPPY WALK

Not much can be said here. The enterity of the movement and poses were taken from the book...And yet is too fast for my taste.

GOAT KID DOING A SNEAK

Awww yeah! I really loved working on this one too! But maan it was hell of a ride...

It is a slow movement, so I needed lots of frames... this one runs at 33 per step, making a huge total of 65 frames.

The excercise was asked to be worked on 12fps(twos), but I thought "hey, perhaps the goat kid deserves a little bit more effort, I'll go for 24(ones)" Hahaha, what a crazy idea! I drew tons of tiny goat kids this past week!
Certainly it was really hard to do the entire animation, and what is more, cleaning it up.

I worked on the pencil test at first, fixed some head and arm issues, and the went to the cleanup phase, in which the clothes and face were added.

As you can see, the clothes are not perfectly done, but I like them ^^. In fact, I really like this animation, even if it's not perfect. First, I like it because it as one of my characters, and actually makes me think he is there moving!! :D

Second, it took me a huge effort to finish it on time(almost). And third, it has to be my first nice cleanup :P.