2D WALK CYCLE

A PROFILE WALK ACROSS THE SCREEN IN 2D

Initially, before I actually started doing my walk, I looked up on how a person actually walks and how different people walk in a different manner. The walk of a person actually talks a lot about their personality. 


But before that I looked at some of my previous work, which I had done relating to the walk cycle. I had made a flip book, which actually shows the transition of a man walking out the page. That exercise had helped to understand the movement of hands and legs at a very basic level.

After looking at this, I looked at some videos which would give me the real understanding  of people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wippooDL6WE]

After watching the above video, I understood the movement of the leg properly, since he picks up his leg high up in the air, and if we watch it step by step, the leg motion is very clear and interesting to notice.

I looked at certain books and pictures of walk cycles for reference like the animation survival kit and the complete animation book and took careful notice at the pictures below, the touch points of the legs, and important things like hand and leg coordination which actually makes the walk look smooth.

The above image actually gave me the understanding of the entire walk cycle with each step broken down into small steps, but I was looking for a more refined way of dividing each step which I think the picture below helped me to do.

After looking at both those pictures, I tried to put my understanding to a simple phase of walk cycle which you cans see below.

After that, I was doodling stick figures for my final 2D walk.

Finally, after understanding all the basics required, I came down to 5 main steps for a walk cycle, which are the main and essential ones for a walk to happen. I decided to have the whole body instead of stick figures, because its nice to actually assume that its an actual person with curves etc and also the triangular shape of the feet and the elbow helps me to understand that which direction are they going

into.

   

UNDERSTANDING THE MOVEMENT OF EACH STEP IN ONE FRAME

The walk cycle is actually divided into 5 basic steps which are: 

1. Contact with the ground
2. The feet down on the ground
3. Passing upwards
4. Up where the body leans forward
5. Contact with ground again

After creating all my five steps and seeing every movement carefully, I created my final 2D WALK CYCLE on flash which you can see below.

The entire exercise was very useful and interesting, while doing the exercise, each time I was walking on the roads i could help but to notice how people are walking and how are there movements changing in every step. It was a funny experience on the roads because every person walks very differently and its very interesting to notice that. After doing this exercise I think I have a much better understanding about walks and the proportion and the change in movements.