Animator's Survival Kit

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I would consider myself decently aquatinted with the idea of a walk cycle. I, from a young age, would attempt to animate character movements on FlipaClip to minimal success. Despite the shoddy results at the time, it was a learning experience for my very first real walk cycles in early high school.

While far from perfect, it was fantastic for me at the time. All of this to say, despite my prior experience with walk animations there is still a lot for me to learn (clearly). With the Animator's Survival Kit, I was able to fill in a lot of the gaps between past experience and what needed improvement.

First and foremost, smear frames and the implicaiton of movement is something that I continue to struggle with to the day. I never really understood how they work or how to properly impliment them in an animation or illustration. This illustration aids in expressing how to properly draw these smears, which translates to animation! By understanding the basis of implied movement, it is easier to apply it in my own work.

Exaggerating and movement in walk cycles is also a new concept. From my experience, I've only ever played with design and some posture with walk cycles. Brought up by the kit is the idea of dramatic passing movements to create dynamic walking movements, which had honestly not been something I ever really considered. What really stuck with me in this area is the following quote: "This eccentric passing position idea Is a terrifically useful device. We can put it anywhere and where we put it has a huge effect on the action. And who says we can’t put it anywhere we want? There's nothing to stop us." This idea of playing with the posing freely to affect the actions clicked in my brain, which makes me wish I had landed on a less stoic character design for the class!

There is also a section detailing how best to move the head in conjunction with the body, which is greatly helpful in my work. I tend to move elements either to much or to little, and the head is a major area of issue. My current walk cycle sketch definitely falls in the "figure eight" head cycle, which I am eager to fix.

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I would like to apologize for this assignment being turned in late- I failed to check my assignments over the weekend and google classroom has a feature which hides overdue assignments in a separate tab: the perfect storm leading to a late turn in. I am very sorry, and it won't happen again.