First Character Animation Test

Due to the Feel Good character being a black silhouette, I fear it will sometimes be difficult to read his actions despite my attempt to separate overlapping body parts with eraser strokes. So to start with I tried animating a run cycle using the above reference from The Animator's Survival Kit, just to get used to the way the character moves.



For my first attempt I recycled the first five frames, changing the front arm and leg. While this works perfectly fine, I felt it was too difficult to read the arms swinging back and forth since their opposite positions are identical. I also feel the torso of one frame is far too long, making his bum flick back as he runs.



I improved the frame with the long torso and redrew the last five frames, altering the poses slightly so that none of the countering positions have the same silhouette. While this makes the arms easier to read, it instead makes the front leg appear to hover in the air a fraction too long, giving the impression of a leap rather than a running stride.



I adjusted the front leg that stayed in the air one frame too long, bending ad lowering it slightly. Now I think the overall run reads much better, though due to the nature of the character its still easy for the eye to lose track of which arm and leg is which. I will have to be careful to make the silhouette for each pose and action clear when it comes to animating for the final piece.