Critique - Cowboy

Looking at the clip, it needs a lot of work. There is something very swimmy and awkward about it. (I wish you could draw onto the frames in quicktime and save it with like that, so you could go through it frame by frame and check out the overlaid drawings...).

First off, I need a frame counter, otherwise it's not very precise and don't include the controllers.

So here's the gist of it. When he first leans to the right, his weight is on the screen right leg. So the hips should be the opposite, right side up. Especially when he takes the step and the screen left foot is in the air. Unless you go cartoony, then have the right side of the hip go up on the lean and keep what you have now. But either way, when the foot touches the ground the hips should level out and as he goes down the left side of the hip should go up (weight is on it). Same thing when the other foot goes up. Realistically left side of hip is up, otherwise keep what you have (think about Sumo wrestlers as they take steps).













But with that second step you don't level out the hips as he touches down the foot, the right side is still up. Same with the next step.
You know, when I got up to act it out, I started walking like the guys from Galaxy Quest. I think maybe because I want to have my arm/hand go always above the gun (ready to draw), so I swing with the leg, not against it (like in a normal walk).

You can also tone down the shoulders. It's just the combination of those extreme movements of the shoulders, the hips, upper body bending that makes it look very swimmy and awkward.

Look at your reference and pick out all the extreme poses, the key ones, look at what your body is doing and especially the timing of it.

Looking for Galaxy Quest images I found this Japanese poster. Awesome.