Amber Walk Cycle and Spirit Tail Tests

This afternoon I animated a new walk cycle for Amber, as I haven't animated her since her redesign a few weeks ago, so I figured she needed a new walk cycle test. She is now about 5-6 years younger and has different outfits for each season.

I drew her with some new blue Prismacolour pencils I got from Chromacolour recently. I really enjoy the loose feel of these pencils and although blue is usually for key animators to then be drawn afresh on new paper by clean-up artists using lead pencils, I will be colouring my lines an orange/brown colour, so the colour I use to animate will not effect the final look. So I may just draw everything in blue!

I decided to give her baggier and more oversized sleeves from what I drew in my model sheet, I think I prefer it this way and it gives some interesting options for character performance, so I may amend her 'Autumn' design later!

After this, I did some rough key frames of how the Spirit's tail might move (from side-to-side) to give a watery, lava-lamp style. I used a lava-lamp as reference to see how it could break apart and join up again. The first result is not working as well as I hoped, it appears like bubbles as opposed to watery droplets. The second is an improvement, so if I get good feedback on it then I will most likely take it further. Otherwise it's back to the drawing board!

Amber Walk Cycle II

Another walk cycle of Amber in more traditional British clothes inspired from some of my family photos in the 90's. She's still about 9-11 years old here, and I want to make her younger for my film, so perhaps this will be more relevant at the end of the film, but even then she may be younger than this!

I had some difficulty with the back of the dress, I wanted it to drag and float behind her but haven't achieved this at all... I'll need to shoot some reference for that next time.

More tests to come soon!

Walk Cycle Test

This is a walk-cycle animation test I did of Amber for my Pecha Kucha Presentation last Monday. It's a 12-frame cycle (12fps) with very rough keys/in-betweens. I think the side-to-side sway needs more exaggeration and her arm 'pops' a bit on one of the frames, so it will need re-addressing. For now I think it expresses her character, but I will be changing her design in my next drawings. Speaking with other animation students, we agreed that her dungarees give too much of a 90's American film impression, even though I wore dungarees as a child also, I want to make her more British and traditional.



For December's Production Bible deadline, I'll be doing a final revised walk cycle for Amber and an animation test for how she moves within a scene of the film.