This assignment combined locomotion (walking) with a physical action—getting up from a seated position or sitting down. I was attending a conference during this assignment, so my video reference wasn’t shot very well in my hotel room. This is another example of how I wish I had spent more time capturing better reference footage, such as finding a more open space to shoot in and using my wife as the subject, since I was using the Stella rig. These kinds of improvements could have helped enhance the animation. In my planning thumbnails, I began marking where I observed translations and rotations of body parts, as well as where certain principles of animation, like anticipation, would come into play

As you can see in the first pass, the “personality” of the character isn’t quite right. Obviously, this required some adjustments be made.

So I decreased the spacing between the feet and swing the hands out a little more to portray a more feminine walk.

I add more drag in the head and weight in the body as it transitions from sitting to standing.

I continue to focus on the weight, timing and spacing. I also decide to hide the ponytails because I didn’t have enough time to animate them well enough to show.

The final animation.