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After having filmed my emotive movements, I decided that it was best to also go back to the basics of animation. I think that it s important to be able to animate a walk cycle. I decided to experiment on two different versions of walk cycles.
At first I thought it would be okay to just film myself doing a basic walk cycle, however, since I am researching body language as well throughout my research, I thought it would be best to also film myself creating a stylized walk as well.
WALK CYCLE
(1) I found an image online that would help me understand the movement of a walk cycle. So far as I have noticed there are different positions the body moves during this procedure:
Contact - One of the legs is touching the ground before it raises upwards
Recoil - When one of the legs starts to bend as the other has more weight and force on the ground
Passing - When both legs overlap each other within the movement
Hight point -When one of the legs is at the highest peak as well as the body.
Throughout this diagram, I also noticed that the body isn't always consistent through its position. The body sort of bounces up and down depending on the position of the legs as well.
For example, since one of the "high point's" legs is fully bent at a peak position the other, is fully stretched out which helps push the body upwards. Being able to analyse the diagram to this extent, helps me understand more of the body movement rather than just me trying to copy and mimic it.
An artist I looked at interestingly was Eadweard Muybridge (3). Muybridge was an English photographer who was known for his frame-by frame photography of motion. He is most well known for his art piece 'The Horse in Motion'.
I felt as though his work was extremely appropriate for my research since it helps me understand the motion of the body through the different poses within his works. However, since I am not animating animals and I am animating a human, I decided that it was best to be able to find an example from his works of people.
Walk Cycle - My video reference
So, I decided to film myself, again by using the University's facilities to be able to film myself properly and try to analyse the movement that I wanted to do.
Attempt 1
This was my first attempt on filming myself. I can already tell I feel extremely awkward and shy while trying to film this. The reason was because I kept on overthinking the kind of movement that I wanted to do. I can tell that it looks mechanical since my hands are properly placed on my hips and that my hips aren't moving naturally with the legs as well as the movement of the upper body.
Attempt 2
This attempt was a lot better since I finally decided what type of walk cycle I wanted to do. It is pretty stylized in itself but I still wanted to make it simple and effective. So, as I was receiving feedback it really helped me understand again the body a lot more through my attempts. I feel as though this felt like an extremely calm walk cycle but it is still bouncy in its own way. I liked the idea of the head pop but I felt as though I should try to focus more on exaggerating parts of the lower half of the body instead of the top half.
Attempt 3
This was my final attempt with the walk cycle reference. I felt as though this was the most effective since I was able to improve from my previous two attempts. The reason why I feel this is because the way my body moves feels a lot more natural and it is a lot more slow paced compared to the other attempts. Another thing to note is that, I really tried to experiment a bit with weight so this reference feels as though it is extremely light with the movement. I really enjoyed the flowy movement of the wrists and hand since it shows this calm character throughout my movement.
REFERENCES
(1) Dermot (2014) Tutorial-2 : Walk cycle, ANGRY ANIMATOR. Available at: https://www.angryanimator.com/word/2010/11/26/tutorial-2-walk-cycle/ (Accessed: February 23, 2023).
(2) Ninascherer (2015) Research: The walk cycle, ninamation. Available at: https://ninamation.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/research-the-walk-cycle/ (Accessed: February 23, 2023).
(3) Eadweard muybridge collections (no date) Eadweard Muybridge Collections. Available at: https://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/ (Accessed: February 23, 2023).
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