Animation &Fleischer &Frame Grabs &walk cycle 13 Sep 2008 07:53 am
Popeye Circle
– One of the best exercises I ever received, when I was starting out in animation, came from someone I respected and whose work I truly admired. Jack Schnerk advised me to animate a character walking in a circle.
He felt that a walk cycle was one of the hardest things to learn, and by animating that character in a circle it meant keeping the character solid while moving it 360º. Try it; it isn’t easy (unless, presumably, your working in cgi.)
Note: the photo of Jack Schnerk comes from Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern site; it’s part of a UPA group photo.
After posting all that material about Max Fleischer yesterday, what better example of a character moving in a circle can I find than Popeye. This is from the film Hello, How Am I? where we get two Popeyes for the price of one.
Here’s the title card and a frame grab from the actual scene.
__
(Click any image to enlarge.)
Here are frame grabs of the actual walk.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
on 13 Sep 2008 at 6:39 pm 1.Thad said …
Arguably the greatest Popeye cartoon. I’m screening this in full 16mm glory next week at a convention and hope the audience enjoys this mind-fudgery.
on 13 Sep 2008 at 7:37 pm 2.Chris Hatfield said …
This the best post ever. Good Advice
on 14 Sep 2008 at 12:32 am 3.Bryon Caldwell said …
This is great stuff! Thanks for posting the frames!
on 01 Aug 2011 at 11:58 am 4.Nicholas Pozega said …
Great exercise! Thank you so much for this stuff, Micheal! This and those other cycles, not to mention those excellent pencil tests will be a great help to a budding animator like me!