Animation Critique: Walkcycle

Direct link: Walk front & side


Nice snobby attitude! I like the upper body posture and how he swings his club, good stuff.

His arms seem really long. Is there any way you can make them shorter? His hands seem huge as well (am I having trouble with hands today? ... ).

Animation wise here are a few things that need tweaking:

- you need to extend his leg as he takes the steps. For instance, his left leg goes forward til frame 12, but then goes backwards til 16. It needs to continue forward until the leg is pretty much stretched out, then put his heel on the floor and then the foot down.
- it looks like the feet are sliding (front and sideview). Front: 38 til the end, his left foot slides to the right, his right foot seems to slide screen left throughout the whole plant til lift off. Side: his right foot goes back til frame 6, then seems to slow down, with a couple of hiccups until the lift. Same with the other one.
- the feet are a bit weird when you got from 42 to 44. They seem to slow down, then accelerate til 44. It looks like they hit the ground on the heel, stay on the heel for a frame or two, then there's the plant. It should be one continues move.
- from 45 to 47 nothing moves except his arms.
- front view: his body should move left to right as he takes the steps, in order to stay balanced. For instance frame 6, his left leg is up, so his body should move screen left, shifting his weight over his right leg for balance. Right now at this frame he would tip to the right. Balance him out during each step.
- his hips, front view, right side, they are going up from 11 to 20, I would have them level out til 26 (with the right side never higher than the left), then the big weight shift til 32, which you have (this goes for the other side as well)
- upper body: front view, from 21 to 24 there is a sharp movement to the right that ends abruptly. The head reacts to that as well. It seems too hiccuppy during that point.
- his arms feel even and slow. Looking at his club (side view), the rhythm of the up and downs is too flat, which makes it look robotic. It's not like the end of the club is super heavy, his hand will still be driving the movement of the club, so you can add a faster rhythm to it (the only fast part which seems out of place is once the club is high up at the end of the clip it changes direction quickly after frame 1). Grab a broom and walk around with it and study how the stick moves.
- the swing of his left arm is very even as well. You can have the swing be faster then slow it down as it changes direction, give it more rhythm. In the front view his hand is rotated down with his fingers pointing to his right foot (does that make sense?), ... I think it might be easier to show you what I mean on Monday... basically, the fingers seem tense, you could have them in a more relaxed pose (especially the thumb), but the hand itself is too swingy. The slow movement of the arm doesn't help either.

Start with that, we'll talk about it again in class. Nice work though, great attitude.