Dog Walking Dog: Going For Half A Walk

I don't know if this one exactly qualifies as half a walk.

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It is only eight drawings and cycles.

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It was used in an ABC/Disney video for They Might Be Giants' Here Come the ABCs video series.

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As far as work goes, it would have been "easier" to do a Preston Blair standard walk.  There's less thinking involved, though this was pretty intuitive and went quickly.

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This was how we thought these guys walked.  The dog walking the dog.  So there were too many other options and it didn't need any more drawings.

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Neither this film nor The Stepford Wives film won anything at ASIFA, maybe the jurists were more attuned to bizarre walk cycles than they are today. 

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This is a graphic approach to character animation, trying to find interesting manners of movement (which are simple) that convey an attitude -not to be confused with 'tude -using the body form as a configuration of shapes. 

It's ontologically opposite of "the illusion of life".

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It is, rather, the admission of the medium.  Instead of applying laws of gravity and biology to the drawings the animation here allows the drawing to dictate the manner of motion.  

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This is a pretty simple little walk for all those big words -but that was the thinking behind animating this character in this fashion.

It's very simple, it doesn't try too much.  It's one bit which, I think, succeeds in what it attempts.  As goofy as it is, I'm pretty happy with this little cycle.

Turn and Fall

There are 47 drawings in the old man's animation from the "Hey Good Lookin'" scene posted yesterday.

He starts here.

1.

This drawing holds while the walkers make their exit.

In terms of direction, he's looking at the space cleared by Vinnie and Crazy.

Crazy exited towards camera when he was face to face the Old Man.

Those two have cleared the area where he exited to, so there's no reason for the Old Man to be looking there.

9.

His turn takes 8 drawings.  It's solid.  Being a poor animator, I sometimes think you can do anything in 8 drawings  -when I see that notion justified, it makes me feel better about my weak timing skills.

14.

He's exiting directly opposite camera.  This is something I've always found tricky.

It helps that the perspective is so clearly defined by the background. 

18.

Here's the vanishing point established in the foreground.  The deeper part of the background beyond the fence alters perspective in some ways.  It's like a backdrop or a painted flat.  Action isn't meant to happen there.

If the Old Man were to pass the fence, he could only turn directly East or West without giving away the perspective and ruining the scale the animation has established.

22.

This is one reason why his walk involves him hopping up and down.

23.

Which causes his pants to fall (remember he's removed his belt already).

33.

This takes 10 drawings (on twos) until tripping him up.

35.

And sending him headlong into the ground.

37.

39.

40.

42.

43.

44.

We're Walking - Hey Good Lookin'

This is the second to last shot in the sequence from Ralph Bakshi's "Hey Good Lookin'" that we've been examining.

More interesting walks.

Two.  One of which -the old man's exit -is amongst the most difficult things to execute in animation.

At first glance, the humping couple in the foreground dominate the scene.  They're there for composition's sake -I understand that -but the wind up obscuring some pretty cool animation on the couple behind them.

Here's their walk (half walk, it's only one step).  On twos.

1.

We're looking at the couple in the middle.

2.

3.

4.

They're doing the "same" walk.

5.

"Same" meaning, each character is positioned and timed identically.

6.

In theory, an animator can do one character and then give it to the assistant to animate the other based entirely on what the first is doing.

That kind of mimicry is a good technique for learning.  Much better than copying generic walks from "The Animator's Survival Kit."

7.

Of course the woman's breasts are giving great buoyancy.

 8.

9.

Watch the hands.  They're not just lol-lolling like a metronome.  They're sharp, they're adding character to the movement.

10.

This might be a tradition walk's "passing point" -the highest point in the walk.

11.

#10 was just an inbetween.

12.

and so was #11

 13.

And #12.  13. marks the highest point.

 14.

The four drawings from 10 through 13 mark 1/3 of second on screen.  #14 here is an ease out of that position. That's 5 drawings for a point in the walk which textbooks assign a single drawing to.

This is precisely what gives life and character to this animation.

15.

We lose the woman behind the foreground characters.  I'm sure the animator did something amazing with her breasts -lost for eternity.

16.

17.

18.

By this point our walkers are completely obscured by the foreground fornicators.

We'll look at the old guy tomorrow.

Buxom Walk

This is from Ralph Bakshi's "Hey Good  Lookin'" sequence posted yesterday.

The walk here sticks out.

For one thing, it's not a cycle.

It very well could've been a cycle, but it's not.

Here are three similar positions, the passing point drawing of the walk.

Drawing 1 (numbered arbitrarily -the others follow)

Drawing 15

Drawing 29

While the character's expression changes somewhat and she would break cycle for the final few drawings of the scene there's only one reason I can see that she was given 40 or drawings in this shot instead of 16: her boobs.

The breasts wobble at a different rate from the walk.  It's a kind of brilliant touch to the animation, it would have cost a few hundred dollars less to just cycle and pan her.  Even though it's not the most expressive animation, the idea behind it is sound.