Final Project: Animation development part 3

 Today I mostly concentrated on scene 9 from my storyboard. This is a very difficult scene, because it is based on creating a walk cycle of both a human and a dog. I knew it is a very time-consuming task, therefore I decided to create a movement of both, the human and the dog, doing one full movement (step with their right legs and a step with their left legs) and then I wanted to repeat this action several times. 

This idea was supposed to save me a lot of time, and it did, however it did not make the process short or easy. I think this scene is one of the most challenging in my animation. 

Before starting to create this movement I have watched two youtube videos, to help myself out. Here are the videos:

These two videos were my references for the movement itself. I think it is very important to understand how exactly legs move to create a good walk cycle. After watching the videos, I was more aware how to even start this scene. 

Whenever I would get lost in the movements, I would stand up in my room and just walk around. I would observe how my legs work and where my knees are at each stage of the movement. I think observing life is very important, when animating.

I drew all the images using the onion skin. Onion skin helps to see what are the frames before and after the one I am drawing. I have been also using different columns with my drawings, because they work like layers. On my first layer I had my background and then I was creating the movement on the second layer. I like using layers because they save me a lot of time. 

When I finished doing the one movement, I wanted to copy and paste all the frames and just change the place, the characters are at, however this turned out not how I thought it would. Whenever I would change something on the copied frame, the change would be made also on the frame it was copied from. I was not sure how to overcome the problem, therefore I decided to google this problem and I found a youtube tutorial explaining how to do, what I initially wanted to do. Click here to access the video I have watched. 

When I found the solution to my problem, I was able to glue all the separate movements together and this is how it turned out. 

I am aware this cycle is very far from perfection, however knowing that I do not have too much time to make this animation, I think this is good enough. It is clear that both, the human and the dog, are walking and that was my main goal. I am happy with this scene. 

When I had this scene ready, I could glue it with the rest of the animation I have made so far. I connected it in IMovie and exported as an MP4 file. 

I am very happy with what I have created so far. I think it all looks how I initially planned it on the storyboard and that is very good. That means I can follow a given plan without making many changes. I think obtaining this particular skill can be very helpful in my future career as an animator.