This exercise was pretty straightforward, especially since I had just completed a lower-body vanilla walk cycle in the previous class, Animation Basics. I’ve also done plenty of walk cycles as a 2D animator, which feels like a long time ago now.

For this walk cycle, I wanted to challenge myself as an animator by using the female rig, Stella. I don’t have much experience animating female characters (the last time being my thesis video), so I knew this would be a great opportunity to test myself. I started with a reference video, but looking back, I probably should have filmed my wife walking to get a better reference.

As I progress through this program at Animation Mentor, I’m really starting to appreciate just how important it is to have good reference video. By "good," I mean reference that closely matches what I’m animating. Trying to make up animation without a clear picture in your mind of what’s happening in a scene can be really frustrating.

Blocking Pass

I focused on the outward swinging of the arms and the hip rotation, as these are elements that can distinguish a female walk from a male walk. Some areas I needed to work on were creating more “organic” hand poses, reducing the back-and-forward translation of the torso in the side view, and keeping an eye on the usual knee pops.

Spline Pass

Overall, I was happy with how the walk turned out. Don’t get me wrong—it could definitely use more polish, particularly with the hand poses and the overlapping action of the ponytails. I probably should have given her just one ponytail at the back of her head to make it simpler to animate.

That reminds me of the old abbreviation from Richard Williams’ book, K.I.S.S., which stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” What an important lesson for every animation student to remember.

Final Animation