Walk Cycles A-Go-Go! [pt.2]

As promised, i return to you with the front and back walk cycles. for these scenes i need a bit of a slower walk... a ramble if you will. unfortunately that means i had to draw more frames than the side view (about 25 each!). on the other hand, the motion is a lot smoother. hmm.... more work = better quality? it can't be!!
anyway, here's the goods...

First the front:



then the back.:



to see them in action click on the above images.

Most cartoons you see operate only in 2 dimensions. I mean the characters only move left or right, and very rarely towards or away from the viewer. Now i know why... because it's a big pain in the ass animating perspective and foreshortening and all that business. but afterwards i thought," this front/back stuff doesn't suck enough. I'm going to animate 3/4 perspective!" oh, the folly of youth.

more on that next time!

Walk Cycles A-Go-Go! [pt.1]

Like i said before, i spent a large chunk of my vacation working on the cartoon. when i story-boarded this sucker i wrote in a montage of The Agent strolling into town, all spaghetti western style. Unfortunately that meant i needed lots of walk cycles. what's a walk cycle, you ask? click below and see! (no porn, i promise)



I had to draw The Agent 16 times to make this cycle. ok, there was some copying and pasting involved, but it was still a lot of work. especially when you consider i'm a SLOW drawer. If you remember the past episodes of The Agent, you might notice he's a little less sloppy and clunky. if you don't remember, refresh your memory. his previous incarnation had its charm, but i thought i'd try cleaning him up a bit. i particularly like the way the movement of the glasses came out. good job wes!

Tune in next week when i show you the front and back cycles... how exciting!

Back is the Incredible...

OK, the blogging break got extended quite a bit longer than anticipated. after i finished the work for the previously mentioned shows i had to fill the majority of my spare time with home improvement projects and helping my mom [not] move. I'm out of the woods now, and i spent a large chunk of my "vacation" last week cranking away on the ol' cartoon. i gotta tell ya, this is a big improvement from the last episode of The Agent, as far as animation goes. I think the writing's better too, but the improvement is not quite as obvious as that of the animation and design. I'm going to push for more out of my voice talent as well, so start practicing Dustin! ;) The down side is that it's taking me a bit longer than anticipated to get done. what can i say... quality takes time.

In the meantime, I'm resuming the blog posts! so tune in for some [hopefully] interesting progress reports and what-not. I'll have an official post complete with pictures and stuff soon.

until then!

ps: today's 9/11... the day we mourn the death of Liberty in the United States. light a candle. or pray. or burn some incense. or just remember.