Category Archivewalk cycle



Action Analysis &Animation &Animation Artifacts &Commentary &Hubley &repeated posts &walk cycle 02 Aug 2013 04:29 am

Marky’s Walk, cycled

- If I had to choose who was my favorite animator, I’d have a tough time. Equal credit would probably have to go to three different people: Bobe Cannon, Tissa David and Bill Tytla. Jim Tyer and Ed Smith would fall just a smidgen below these three, for me. But there are none like them all, as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve posted a lot of drawings from Tissa and Bill Tytla, but have very few drawings by Bobe Cannon (nor have I seen many published anywhere.)

Here is a walk cycle from the beginning of Hubley’s monumental short, Moonbird. The odd numbers are extremes by Cannon, and the inbetweens (even numbers) were done by Ed Smith. Three different sized papers were used for this, and you can view them full sized if you click the thumbnails.

You’ll notice there’s paint all over the drawings. The ink & paint involved tracing the drawing, then using oil paints to cover all of the clear area in black. Some of that paint seeped onto the originals. In one drawing even to coloring the hat accidentally.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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“Marky” walk cycle from Moonbird
On twos at 24FPS
Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

There’s a lot more to this scene including several variants on the walk.
At some future time, I’ll add the other drawings to show off the entire scene.

Animation &Animation Artifacts &Independent Animation &walk cycle 03 Jan 2013 07:58 am

Picasso

- When you run a studio in New York, and you’re an animator, there’s a good likelihood that at the quiet moments when work is slow, you’ll be working on your own bit of animation. Whether it’s a short film or a test of something you’ve always imagined animating, it’s hard not to keep pencil to paper (or stylus from the Cintiq.) Vinnie Cafarelli was just such a creature. After seeing a show of Picasso’s works he took the flier and started animating the image Picasso had done. It never got to completion; those were the days of the expensive cameraman and laborious cel process. But I can take Vinnie’s work and finish it in AfterEffects and Photoshop. Here’s my exosure of his basic animation. No X-Sheets were left behind. Here’s the art; here’s the QT movie.


This is the original flyer that got Vinnie going.
He built all his animation up from this printed piece.


The Background

The “character” drawings follow:

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The following QT movie was made of the
drawings above. Since there were no X-Sheets
For better or worse, I came up with the timing, myself.

Animation &commercial animation &UPA &walk cycle 29 Nov 2012 08:08 am

Magoo Walk Cycle

- There’s no way to know who animated this walk cycle. Perhaps it’s a commercial by Lu Guarnier. Vince Cafarelli was Lu’s assistant; so if I had to guess, I’d say that Lu animated it and Vince did the cleanup.

For the QT movie of it, I moved the character into place so that we could run it on a cycle.

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The following QT movie was made reworking the positioning
of the character on the pages. This enables us to see a repeated
cycle without Magoo bouncing back to the starting position.

It’s certainly a fast walk.
You figure a natural walk is 12 frames per foot hit / 24 frames for both.
This cycle takes just 18 frames. Presumably it’s part of the overall timing.

Animation &Books &walk cycle 10 May 2012 06:44 am

Terry – Cat Walk

- Before going directly into the subject of today’s post, let me give a little twist toward our current on line promotion, Indiegogo.

As you may know, we sought funds on Kickstarter a few weeks back trying to raise some cash to create a terrific trailer for POE, the animated feature we’re seeking to produce. That fund raising scheme wasn’t as successful as we’d hoped; money offered was not collected, and we’re taking what we’d learned and moved to a different venue, Indiegogo. There, we’ve started from scratch.

POE is a film we’d like to produce and are hoping we’re not too far from the starting gate. SSince we’ve developed a script, drawn a storyboard, created about 20 minutes of animatic (story reel) from the few voices we’d recorded, the next and most likely step would be to animate some of it and get it to our sales group to help raise the necessary capital. That’s where we are. If you’ve already given your support to this project, I thank you sincerely. If you’re not aware of it, I encourage you to look at the website for POE, poestory.net, or the Facebook page, or Indiegogo where all the action is happening. Moral support is almost as good as financial. If you’d like to tell any of your friends about it. I’d appreciate that too. In all, I have to say Thank you for your help.

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- Stephen Worth at Animation Resources recently posted anew his copy of Nat Falk’s How To Make Animated Cartoons. When I was a kid I cherished my copy of this book – actually it was a library booik, but I was the only one who ever checked it out of my local library, and I basically had it out permanently. There was something about those clumsy looking Terrytoon drawings that I absolutely enjoyed. (Don’t forget that the Mighty Mouse Show was one of the very first Saturday morning TV shows, and every kid my age was affected by it.)

Aside from all the information about studios and drawing characters etc., there were the pages where you could see the animation drawings all lined up, just as in the Preston Blair book. It was something I didn’t take lightly. I always was curious how those cycles pictured moved. The one, above, was one that stood out in my memory. I always thought it eccentric and was curious to see it in action.

Well, now I can do it given the simple technology at hand. So I put the page through Photoshop and layered the drawings, then dragged it past AfterEffects, and behold a QT movie. Here’s the results, pictured below:

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And here’s the QT movie of the cycle.
It’s on two’s, and
it’s not a pretty picture.
I think Carlo Vinci may have animated it.

I did a similar thing, in a different post, using another walk cycle from this book. That was done in 2009. A cycle of “Puddy the Pup.” That worked a little better but not by much.

Animation &Disney &repeated posts &walk cycle 18 Jan 2012 05:23 am

101 Dalmatians Walk Cycles

An oldie but goodie worth revisiting.

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- When I was young, as I’ve pointed out many times, there were few books available about animation and as few illustrations and photos which ellicited the art of animation. Hence, it was always a treat when a Disney feature was released. The adjoining publicity would provide a trove of material, some worth saving. An encyclopedia my parents bought at about the time of release of 101 Dalmatians included several key images of Pongo running. One of those photos of many cels overlayed to detail the cycle. I loved that picture and frequently looked at that encyclopedia under “Cartoons, Animated” to study the photo of the cels.

At the very beginning of 101 Dalmatians, Pongo looks out onto the street to search for a good mate for both himself and Roger, his owner. At this point we’re treated to a number of walk cycles that I think are brilliant. A number of women are perfectly matched to the dogs that they walk.

Now with DVDs available to us, we can see that the characters originated in the storyboard drawings, and we can study these walk cycles. I’m determined to take these animated bits apart to watch them a bit closer.

Art Student Walk

The first of these is the “girl art student” as described in the drafts (which can be found on Hans Perks’ excellent site A Film LA.) Oddly, from my very first viewing of this film back in 1961, I identified her as a “beatnik,” which was the fashionable joke back then. Now I find out she was an “art student.” I guess that makes sense.

Here’s the pan BG that this scene employs.


(Click any image to enlarge.)

And here is the walk cycle animated by Frank Thomas and Blaine Gibson.
Gibson handled the following scene which pans across the bodies of the pair as they walk.

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The “Art student” walks her dog on threes.


Animation note: The two separate feet are divided by a short space. The left foot is on one plane, and the right foot is on another. This is a BASIC precept for animators to follow, and it’s something that is not appearing in a lot of the recent walk cycles I’ve been seeing. It’s annoying.

French Girl Walks French Poodle

Here’s scene 21 “French girl walks French poodle” animated by Blaine Gibson. It employs the same BG as scene 14, the art student (posted Apr 3), but it extends, beyond what we’ve seen before, to include a telephone booth.


______________(Click any image to enlarge.)

This is a slightly faster walk than others, and I’ve been able to grab all of the drawings. It’s animated on “ones.”

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The “French girl” walks her French poodle on “ones.”

This walk is an absolute gem !

Once again, check out Hans Perk‘s excellent site A Film LA to get the drafts for this film to be able to identify who was behind what. Then go to see Mark Mayerson‘s arduously constructed and informative mosaics as well as his detailed commentary about the film and its animators.

Check out Floyd Norman‘s story about Blaine Gibson on Jim Hill Media.

Young Child With Puppy

Here’s the young child with her puppy. She not only walks, but she licks her lollipop. The pup is just an absolute innocent. It’s another great walk by Blaine Gibson.

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The “little girl with puppy” walks on ones.

The piece, in the film, includes a zoom into the cycle. I’ve tried to adjust for it but don’t think I was wholly successful. There’s a marginal enlargement of the drawings as it goes on – noticeable only in motion. It’s actually interesting in the walk.

Buxom Girl and Bulldog

Here’s Blaine Gibson’s animation for what is labelled in the drafts “Buxom Girl and Bulldog”. I left the backgrounds in this one for you to get an idea of the BG movement.

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The “Buxom Girl and Bulldog” walk on ones.

Animation &Frame Grabs &walk cycle 27 Dec 2010 07:41 am

Tyer Run

- Since NY has been buried in snow, I thought I’d post this run cycle Jim Tyer animated for a “Heckle & Jeckle” cartoon called Sno Fun. The copy of the film is a bit soft, so the images aren’t the greatest. However, it was an interesting exercise for me. Tyer doesn’t really do cycles. He keeps the thing going constantly changing bits and parts of the character’s body. Things keep in motion and distort, distort, distort.

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Here’s a QT of the cycle with a mix of one’s and two’s.

Animation &Disney &Frame Grabs &walk cycle 11 Jun 2010 07:44 am

Dumbo run

- Here I’ve taken 8 frames from Bill Tytla‘s delightful run and worked it into a cycle. Tytla continues the run but doesn’t make a cycle of it – he keeps coming up with new stuff, naturally. I found it enlightening to work on it.

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The following QT represents the drawings above exposed on two’s. This appears to be the way Tytla exposed it in the film.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

Don’t forget that Hans Perk has posted the drafts for Dumbo, and this has led Mark Mayerson to post a brilliant Mosaic for the film.

Animation &Independent Animation &Tissa David &walk cycle 21 Apr 2010 09:20 am

Tissa’s Old Lady

- Here’s a walk cycle Tissa David animated for R.O.Blechman‘s hour program, A Soldier’s Tale. This is a tiny scene in the show. The camera is moving in on her, so I tried to adjust her a bit to be able to view this as a cycle.

For a slightly overhead view, wth her walking in 3/4 profile, it’s pretty complex animation. The woman carries a lot of weight in her body, and I think Tissa did a great job with her.

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The following QT represents the drawings above exposed on two’s.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

Animation &Disney &walk cycle 15 Mar 2010 07:54 am

Thomas’ Little Tailor – 4

- So, finally, we’ve reached the end of this magnificent Frank Thomas scene from The Brave Little Tailor. The other three parts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3.

Many thanks to friend, Lou Scarborough for the loan of the xerox copies so I could post the scene.

We start with the last drawing from Part 3.

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The following QT movie represents all 246 drawings of the scene.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

Animation &walk cycle 13 Mar 2010 08:46 am

Burness Cat

- Here’s a secondary character from the Ub Iwerk’s Flip the Frog short, The Office Boy (1932). This was animated by Pete Burness. Milt Gross’ influence is obvious. The animation industry was smitten with him – for good reason.
There’s a wonderfully loose quality to the the run that was all but lost in later animation when things got sophisticated. Today, that loose quality is dead as a doornail.


(Click any image to enlarge.)

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The following QT movie represents the 20 frame cycle above on one’s.

Click left side of the black bar to play.
Right side to watch single frame.

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