Character Run Cycle
Assignment
Animate a character of your choice doing an 8 drawing run cycle. Keep the character design very simple, using just shapes - by this I mean, don't add any details. No clothing, shoes, hair, facial features. If you want to go back over the drawings later and add some stuff, that's fine, but I want you to focus on the action and movements rather that the detailing at this point.
Purpose and Principles Involved
The purpose of this assignment is to animate a character in a run cycle. To deal with timing and creating an illusion of weight, gravity and overlapping action.
These are the principles being re-enforced:
• Stretch
• Squash
• Weight
• Slo-in and slo-out
• Spatial Relationships
• The Effect of Gravity
• Realistic Timing
• Use of Arcs
• Accuracy in Drawing
• Reading and Following a Timing Chart
• Maintaining Volume and Proportions
• Flipping Your Drawings
The principles listed above are the Primary principles of animation. All animation is based on these. As I said before, we want to pull our experience in doing the simplified versions of the assignments and start applying them to an actual character.
Grading (Worth 10%)
| Actions: | Grade: | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|
• Arms |
/15 |
||
• Legs & Feet |
/15 |
||
• Torso: Up & Down |
/15 |
||
• Torso: Torque |
/10 |
||
• Smooth path of actions |
/15 |
||
• Plausable run action |
/10 |
||
• Balance |
/10 |
||
• Gravity |
/10 |
||
Total |
Due: Week 4 - Jan 30th |
Date handed in:
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Thought Process
The basic process here is very similar to the walk cycle. Before you begin, you need to know how you want the character to move.
The run is different from the walk in that both feet come off the ground and only one foot touches the ground.
You also need to decide the type of run you want. There is a lope, a jog, a run, a sprint. Think about why the character is running. If they running away from something, is it something dangerous or life threatening? Are they running after something, how deperate are they to catch it? How long have they been running for? Are they fresh or exhausted. Think about the body attitude and emotion of the character. There are two key poses and two major breakdowns: the full stride pose and the mid-stride pose.
In this example, the legs are straight on the leg that is forward and in the mid-stride passing position.
The contact leg buckles to the low point on the drawing right after the full stride pose.
It's a very soft run with just a bit of up and down action.
Here are the demos from the 2012 Winter classes:
This was run #1 shot on 2s
This was run #1 shot on 1s & 2s
This was run #2 shot on 2s
This was run #2 shot on 1s & 2s
This was run #2 shot on 1s
This was run #3 shot on 2s
This was run #3 shot on 1s & 2s
This was run #3 shot on 3s