hangover havel

Hey Folks

Im a bit hungover today so i never really made this picture a very good one but here it is, havel the rock man this suuucks haha. Its experience at the end of the day though.

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CATS

Hey Folks

Cats just some cats for you to cat a look at. yeah im gonna make a stupid walk cycle of a cat instead of a basset ive never drawn cartoon cats before so thought meh fair enough.

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Nito

Hey Folks

Just a bit of fun for y'all to look at, ive been playing dark souls quite a lot and nito is one of my fave bosses apart from the iron golem i might give him a shot aswel actually.

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run cycle little boy

Hey Folks

I have not been on here for quite some time now and i really need to get my shit together haha so here we go i have a new run cycle for you guys to see. This was done in flash with rigging and jazz hope you..

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Inspirational Cartoons

Hey Folks

Im considering going for the more cartoon style basset hound style just form looking up these pictures and "Rover Dangerfield" which i loved as a child has just totally inspired me to go back to the board and draw up a cartoon design for my basset hound character.

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simplify

Hey Folks

I found a model of a basset hound somewhere and decided to take it and use it as a way to try and simplify my basset hound character for animating this is what i came up with. Its not much and bitty chunky but it shows just what a basset looks like and gives me an easier option.

i might play about with the eyes a bit and might make it slightly more cartoony but im trying to get more realism rather than cartoon but then again who's to say that i cant just create a basset hound cartoon character.

More coming soon

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lovely basset hound piccys

Hey Folks

So i got my basset hound to walk and model for me and i managed to get a much better understanding of her skin and weight when she moves. I came up with some sketches to show off what i have been talking about in the previous posts. I even drew up what the frames of the foot are doing in 2s on the bottom of the page.

So this is the front of the legs and as you can see i drew the keyframes and if you look when the foot goes down all the weight goes down with it. As it moves from the down into the pass position the skin folds onto the back of her leg then it rests as it progresses upwards.

The backlegs are very interesting because if you look at the keyframes here when the contact position come into frame the skin and the weight are at its highest point then it starts the flop down on the down position, as the leg progresses forwards the skin rests before the pass position and then starts to move around the leg and back upwards to hit the contact again.

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Flash Walking

hey Folks 

This is a video fo my basset hound flash walking up the road>this will help me get some much better studies of how she moves for animation.

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bodystocking

Hey Folks

This is a sketch of the bodystocking of a basset hound this shows the weight and poise of the animal.

this will help give ma a basic kick off of the animation process to the basset walk cycle :).

wish me luck with this :D

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Basset Sketches

Hey Folks

Been a while since my last post haha this is not good, been working quite a lot to get some pennies in the pocket but no worries this basset project is still going on.

So today i had a day off and finally got down to some sketching to understand the weight and the look of how a basset should be like. Now I painted the face of a basset so thats under the belt but what about the paws and the body.

So here are some quick sketches of paws and the body.

I really like this one as it shows the back of the foot relaxed and gives the image of overlapping the skin with tone and understanding of fat and muscle.

This is showing the basset lying down and gives off a nice study of the ears and what they look like when relaxed. very floppy part of the animal but they have bone structure that helps keep the heavy ears upward when walking.

Sketch of the front paw relaxed the basset was getting anxious and was beginning to know that i was using him for something so he began to start moving quite a lot.

This shows the back of the basset sitting down, they have quite big bottoms i might say and heavy top back aswel.

This is my favourite because i managed to get the bassets foot showing all it weight onto its front paw. This shows in great depth of the overlapping skin and just shows how much weight this basset really carries when walking.

More coming soon I promise this time.

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Basset Hound Digital Painting

Hey Folks

So after looking at references tutorials and some coffee and omelettes, i have finally finished my basset hound painting for my mums birthday it took me at least 4 hours to do from scratch by sketching into photoshop and then painting on top with base colours, shadows, highlights and everything else.

This is my fist time making a digital painting and i will say i really enjoyed this project and there are more to come. Tell me what you think?

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PU06: Digital Painting with Sam Deats

Hey Folks

Sorry i have not been on here for a while i have been upto my eyeballs in overtime and preparing for my internships and stuff like that.

The Basset hound walk cycle is still coming along but i just realised that it is my mums birthday on sunday so I decided to make a basset hound portrait for her as a digital painting :)

Here is a cool tutorial that shows how to do it in stages and build up from there.

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Richard Williams Doggy Stuff WIth My Own Theory

Hey Folks

SO i decided to scan in some images of what was in the section for the four legged animal walks and principles. As you can see in this description animals walk like us but with one set of legs slightly ahead of the other or slightly out of phase. Again like i said before in my basset hound section you have to focus on the type of dog like size and weight plus the speed that it is going at and whatever little things that need to be added.

As you can see here it has four sections the head the legs (that counts as 2) and the tail but we are just focusing on the two leg sections just now :D. So the back part of the legs is in the PAS POS and the pelvis is going up whilst the front legs are in the CONTACT POS and the chest is going down. Again flip it the other way on the next drawing and you have the same but opposite. This looks like the main frames I.E the extremes.

Here is another full description of a dog walking but the extremes are different from the page above us though so i think it might be different fro other four legged animals because it os obvious that the page above is a feline animal.

SO the two extremes here have the animal on frame 1 with the pelvis down and the legs seem to be in the DOWN POS and the front legs are in the PAS POS and in frame 11 same but flipped with legs.

How do we start and break it down however though which leg do we start with, the front or the back what position the CONTACT of the DOWN or even the PAS. In my theory here the keyframes are focused on the front legs and the numbers are......( 5, 7, 11, 13, 15)

Here is a breakdown of the whole thing with Richard Wiliams oppinion.

We can even break the joints on the four legged walk it we have to here is an example of it in the paws of the animal.

 Because It is a basset hound we are studying we need to focus on the weight of the animal. So I placed in a section about how to get weight right.

I also threw in this section too because it shows about the action of a whip, this is for the dogs tail but when we study basset hounds movements we notice that the tail is always up and it moves a bit violently especially when they are going downstairs so this will need to be taken into consideration.

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Basset hound Mauri walking in water (fysio)

Hey Folks

I found this video of a Basset Hound experiment of it walking underwater to show the leg movement, ofviously the skin is not showing what it naturally does but at least it gives you a slow motion of how the legs move. before the back legs CONTACT the ground the front legs are in the PAS POS. which is the same of what is in the survival kit maybe it might just be because it is underwater but i need further study of this before i cant even start to make a walk cycle up.

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British Gas - TV Advert (The Basset Hound)

Hey Folks

After searching through and through I eventually found the basset hound in the British Gas advert When you watch it you can definitely see the movement of the basset but this one is very exaggerated you cant even see the footwork because his skin is so low. This is a nice example of skin movement though on a basset. Again this is what looks to be cutout animation with the shapes layered on top and given vectors or something to help get fluid motion on the skin.

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The Basset Hound Walk Cycle

Hey Folks

So i have finished my monster walk cycle and now I think it is time to attempt a four legged animal walk cycle. I have chosen a basset hound because I have 3 of them in my parents home so it is the best form of research to do on them just now.

I found this portrait of a basset hound online and really like how they captured the look, feel and weight of one and this is a good start to get me motivated.

I know this is not a very good photo from the net because it has a cat in the middle but if we take a look  at the leg movement of the basset hound it is in the position where the back legs are on the UP position if you remember from my walk cycle page and the front legs are on the DOWN position. this is strange because in the "Animators Survival Kit" usually the extremes are the back legs are on the DOWN POS whilst the front legs are on the PASS POS however that was for a medium sized dog probably because of the bassets weight and size the legs maybe move somewhat different.

This is a perfect example of displaying the weight of a Basset Hound to start with if we take a look at the skin on this animal it obviously sags over its legs and underbelly. By just standing in this position it shows that this is the main feature of the basset hound and it will need to be taken into consideration when walking so the skin will flop not violently but in motion with its legs.

Bassets are quite heavy animals because they were originally bred for hunting and digging but now they are just lazy things that steal your couch or bed in the house. This is an example of a bassets normal weight of fat. I forgot to say but in the picture above the person holding the dogs chin is meant to show sagging skin. you can see it here on this basset. when a basset walk the underbelly drags most of the weight because of the amount of fat and it makes even the back of the bassets skin move around too when the belly sways from side to side.

This is just a funny photo to show that we could exaggerate the bassets face if we wanted to but i'm not actually going for exaggeration in this walk cycle it will be pure study of the animal for weight and the four legged cycle.

nice portrait here captures the emotion and the facial features of the basset and even when relaxed you can see a lot of weight within the animal

Im sure i saw this on the Gas advert i cant remember but i will find it and get it up here for you to show exaggeration of a basset hounds movements. Again you can see from my comments that he has taken into consideration of the skin and weight of the basset and how it drags right down to his underbelly.

 Enjoy Muchly

Monster Walk Cycle All Coloured Up

Hey Folks

Sorry that I have not been on here for quite some time now I have just been slaving away at work haha. So today I want to show you my monster walk cycle that i tried out to see if it works or not and i think it looks pretty cool. Like i said before i wanted to try and create something different and I came up with this where you only need to move one leg and keep it going and going.

I coloured it up but the problem was lovely flash decided to cut off on me and iI couldn't load the file after that for some reason so i never managed to get a shadow in which is very annoying but hey ho thats life at least i got it done though.

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Monster Rough Walk Cycle Test

Hey Folks

today i roughed out the monsters walk cycle, its looking pretty good but i feel that there is something not right about it I dont know what it is but maybe you can spot it out.

Sorry for the size of the clip it is a bit small but when I clean it up and colour it in I will make him bigger for all to see in glory.

Remember this is an experimental walk cycle that is quite unusual to the book he is meant to be dumb looking and acting dumb when he walks. It does say in the animators survival kit that you have to be inventive so this is a walk that I invented haha anyways let me know what you think folks.

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"Rayman Origins" Question Answered With A UBI ART Video

Hey Folks

A comment was given to me in my robot man walk cycle about "Rayman Origins" and I never made a comment back but in the least yes i have played it and it is a fantastic game with very healthy lush backgrounds and quick exaggerated animation.

I wanted to know how they did the animation for this game and I found this video that is about UBI ART it must be the company that obviously made the animations for the game and it shows you in this video how they made the animations for the game.

It is kinda the same way i made my walk cycle using different parts and placing the vector points on the bit that you want rotated and then simply animate them. The difference is that these guys are drawing right onto the screen with their awesome graphic tablets lucky sods.

It is indeed a very easy way to animate things and i am too becoming more and more pointed into this direction because that walk cycle I made only took about an hour including having a generous tea break :D.

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Monster Coloured In

Hey Folks

Today I coloured in my monster character to see what he could look like when walking. I decided to draw right into photoshop because i am obviously gonna need to learn to do it in flash, I feel that i am beginning to get the grips of this technique and seem to be getting it quite well. I have shown two images of the character one which has the construction lines done in photoshop to show how I built him up and the other is just to have a look at and see of he works.

I wanted his skin to be green for some reason but then I realised that the different parts on his head need to contrast. I had a look at the colour wheel and made his opposites oranges and purples I believe that he has turned out quite well.

I feel like a new style of colour and character is beginning to flow out of my designs now with contrasting colours and specific eyes and facial details. Which is quite nice but i think i might need to create some more designs what do you think?

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Monster Walk Cycle Plan For Flash

Hey Folks

Sorry i have not been on here for a while i ahve been doing some overtime in work and i need the money. I have been paid though woohoo and I had enough money to buy me some nice sketchbooks plus "Plants VS Zombies"

So I have been reading more of the survivial kit and I feel that I want to make another walk cycle but a more crazier one. I have created this monster like creature and I want to give him a happy but dumb style to his walk with lots of squashiness. As you can see in the sketches here i have made the contact position the lowest point of the walk, the down has been replaced with an uprising position, the pass position is still the going up and the up is still the up, delay a few frames and them come right down into the contact again and start the process all over again.

I will test it out to see if this works, it should with the right inbetweening and movement it should be fine to not need to draw it again with the opposite legs. As you can see in the contact positions you cant see his legs which is the trick to this invented cycle, however I might re draw the positions again and show just slight differences so I can get a much more interesting walk cycle.

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Some Aquarium Sketches

Hey Folks

I went to visit the St Andrews Aquarium today for something to do as it was a nice day and didn't want to be stuck in the house. I took my sketchbook and went in to do some drawing thankfully it was very quiet and I managed to sit and concentrate on a few of the animals.

There are a few hits and misses in these sketches but you cant always get things right first time can you, so we have some crawfish, meerkats, spiders, fish and a turtle who was actually half a foot away form me and just let me draw him he must have been honoured haha.

Anyhoo this has been a good day as I enjoyed the drawing I did, learned a thing or two about he animals and it is getting me back into the just of things again which I am glad to be in.

More sketches on the way folks!!!

Enjoy Muchly

Robot Man Walk Cycle

Hey Folks

Today I decided to create my Robot Man walk cycle, I wanted him to have a movement that made him look like although he is damaged he does not bother about it. He has a broken arm and I thought maybe we can put in a shadow and his lightbulb can shine too woohoo :D.

This was my first even walk cycle done in after effects no drawing was done which completely took me out of my comfort zone so i would like feedback on this one. 

I think it looks pretty cool although I tried to get this rigged with the "Rigit" plug in i had a few problems so i had to sit there and painstaikingly place all these parts together but by bit.

I parent the body parts to his torso and that was the base of the animation for the up and down movement.

But see what you think folks.

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The Robot Man Coloured Up Ready To Go

Hey Folks

Today i finished colouring up my robot man character today in Photoshop and now he is ready to be placed into after effects to be rigged and made into a walk cycle.

I have seperated every bit of the character from his head to his toes so that i can create this walk cycle with some decent flow. I will be quite annoying and intense but as soon as i have it done then it will look pretty cool i think :D Now its time to get the character rigged up and ready to go :).

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Robot Man joint and 3/4 turn for walk cycle

Hey Folks

Today I drew up the final design for my robot character, looks pretty cool don't he :D, Now the thing is that there is a plug in for after effects called Rigit which helps join the character together like a 3D rigged character model.

SP I have decided to create a 3/4 view of the character and just simply make him walk in A.E.

So the next stage is to colour him in and on separate parts too.

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Robot Man

Hey Folks

Here is a quick design of a robot character that i wish to make in a walk cycle in after effects. I will separate each part into sections for the body and then connect them all up so I can then create joints and make a much less staggered walk cycle and more fluid for the character to perform.

Easy design I don't particularly want to make him too complicated just enough to perform the walk cycle.

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Mickey Mania - Level 3 - Moose Hunters Richard Williams Reference

Hey Folks

Here is Mickeys Wild Adventure to prove to you all that mickeys walk cycle was referenced from this book.

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Richard Williams Walky Stuff

Hey Folks 

I think that it would be good to get back into animating again and what better way to do it than making some walk cycles :D. I have an animators survuval kit at home and i thought that it would be the best thing to get me started on making some cycles with different personalities and such in the like.

So this first image shows off how to plan a walk and what the specific positions are, Mediant, Going down, Going up, Up, Mediant and Going down again to start the whole thing on the next foot. In other terms for these positions are. Contact, Down, Pass Position, Up and then Contact which in case re-starts the cycle again.

So what do we have anyways folks well...We have 5 different drawings here but if we look most of them are the same we have 2 mediants, 2 going downs and one going up and then an up again. So its like a roller coaster before the big fall you start medium, then you a bit down to get the gravity, then start to go up and up and then as soon as you are right up there, your on your way down again to start all over :D

Heres the thing that people find hard to do in walk cycles how do you get it to look natural and what is the main position within the sequences of the walk and how can you make different walks made easy.

In my theory I personally think that it is...

The PASS POSITION!!!

 The Pass Position can be used to indicate the weight of the character and how he/she controls their walk, remember a walk is a controlled fall and we also have weight to carry and if we don't control out movement then we fall to the floor. Because of Gravity we have to pull our weight to get around and we usually go up or down.

However the pass position does not necessarily need to go up, it could also go down which gives us a completely different walk cycle. This is maybe different but it is still giving a sense of weight because now we have switched some positions for specific qualities of control. The contacts are now considered the up position and the pass is now the low.

The pass position can be used to place the character in many different positions and give off some characteristics too, look at the bottom of this picture we simply keep these as keys and inbetween them from the contact to the pass and we get a whole new walk for our character.

Now that we know how to get the walks right its all about how fast of slow do we make this character, well Mr Williams kindly gave us a set beat chart to show how we can achieve this effect. I think the average animators do is around 8-12 FPS thats what I usually make mine but if we want to achieve different personalities and walks then we might need to set different beats.

Usually the best way to get the right tempo is to set some music to get the character to move with the beat. This is a great technique and if you watch people with their i-pods and all sorts you can tell what type of music they are listening to by counting the steps per second because they are walking to the tempo.

I scanned this drawing in to show you how a good personality can be inflicted into a walk and matched to a tempo also heres a task for you guys to do too. Get a PS1 or even in fact a PSP and play "Mickeys Wild Adventure" you will see lots on similarities to mickeys walk cycle compared to this characters example walk.

Walks can be done with this method that i have explained but so can run cycles the easier thing with runs is that it is much quicker to animate because of less frames and inbetweens :D

The Pass Position gives off the same effect as you can see in this particular scan of the very exaggerated run cycle.

Enjoy Muchly