Friday, April 4, 2008

5-Minute Walk Cycle















Behold the power of the black Sharpie marker.

I needed to demo capturing into Flipbook for a student yesterday. It was an opportunity to show how fast and easy Flipbook is at timing out your work. One problem, I didn't have any hand drawn animation with me, and worse, no punched paper.

So, in about one minute, I improvised an alternative registration system and five minutes after that I had a sequence of drawings created with a black, fine point Sharpie on scrap paper. I think that's the shortest amount of time I've ever used to create a walk cycle.

-e

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow...what a blog!

Thank you so much for sharing all that you do. Just from what I've seen so far I'm loving it.

I'll be spending sometime here soaking it up too!

Keep posting!

Bryan Covington said...

Man, no wonder your students idolize you.

Just a note to make your excellent blog even better, if you add...
loop="true"

...to your quicktime embed statement it will make your walk cycles loop rather than having to click each time it runs.

Erik Westlund said...

Hello Anthony,

Wow. Its great to get a comment such as yours. I'm glad you are finding valuable stuff here at this blog. I'm grateful to you for taking the time to leave a comment.

Its a deal, if you keep reading, I'll keep posting.


Hey Bryan,

They idolize me? Must be all the cash and prizes I'm known for hand out. (yeah, right.)

Ok, well, um, I don't have a good follow-up to that huge compliment. Thanks for passing along the warm fuzzies. Feel free to communicate my humble appreciation to others.

And another big thank you for answering a question I've had for a while. I was assuming I needed to get a copy of QuickTime Pro to embed a loop command in my media. Thanks for sharing your too cool, web savy-ness.

Anonymous said...

Watched the few anims you have posted here not a bad start at 2D and 3D animation. Although I think some time focusing on realistic movement and balance will help tremendously. Most of poses seem to always be slightly off balance. Look closely at the center of gravity on male characters to female characters. Keeping practicing it will come eventually.

Erik Westlund said...

Wow, Anonymous... thanks for the encouragement! I would love to see examples of your work to help me improve mine.

Of course, you realize, the walk cycle in the post is just a generic 2D sequence made with only 4 drawings.

So, where do you hail from? How can I get a peek at your work? Always looking to improve what I do and any reference you offer will be much appreciated.

Nate Lane said...

haha, funny are the above 2 comments. anyways great work man! Keep these posts coming! I really loved the tree one with the quote from the not so popular robin willims.

High five :D !

Erik Westlund said...

Hi Nate,

Glad you enjoy the comments. Yes, I seem to have a secret admirer. Someone who spends the time to closely examine my work but won't tell me who he, or she, is... publicly, or privately as some from industry prefer to to.

Regardless, I welcome all comments. Especially yours. Thanks for the compliment.

Soon I will be posting again... first to finish the walk cycle tutorial series, and then move on to more interesting subjects relating to art and design in animation.

Thanks for taking time to check in and leave a comment. Take care.

Gav said...

Imagine what could happen if you took 6 minutes

Erik Westlund said...

Gav, are you saying I should spend more time animating? Pshaw! Right! Like that's gonna happen anytime soon.

But if that's what you were saying... point taken.

animation by RaoulJonasPadilla said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

nice walk cycle..

is there a part 3 of your "basic walk cycle" ?

Anonymous said...

Well how cool is that. My instructor has a blog. He's hip. He's with-it. Haha.

Let me just say that I have always had big problems with the mechanics of my walk cycles: they somehow always ended up looking like they had a bum leg, haha. These tutorials are very helpful when I'm not at school.

Thanks Erik, and we appreciate your instruction and innovation in college instruction very much!

Erik Westlund said...

Well, thank you "anonymous".

Glad that you find this somewhat neglected resource useful. Oh... and...

No. This positive message on my blog will not change your grade. Cheers. -e