Walk This Way

For anyone animating a lot of walks, here is a useful site I found. Its called Bio Motion Lab and is a Flash applet which allows you to create walk cycles for reference during animation. It has controls for different properties of the walk, so you can observe the difference between male and female walks for example. Of course it doesn't offer infinite options, but if you just require a reference for simple walks, its great. There is one for walks and one for runs:

Walking reference

Running reference

Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes...

Here are a few more heads I drew; the fantastic Daffy Duck,
and my own (particularly poor, in my opinion) creation, who remains nameless:
I also had a go at some bodies, and here are a couple of them:

Lots of Disney Info!

Hey, if you are interested in learning more about professional animators, head over to the Animation Podcast. I'm not really a fan of podcasts, but I love this one. It lets you hear all the big animators, old and new, talking about how they got into the business and what it's like working for a company like Disney or Warner Bros.

There has also been a great show on BBC Radio 2 on Friday evenings called "It Ain't No Mickey Mouse Music" all about how Disney uses music in its movies to carry the stories. It makes me feel very nostalgic. I wish Disney would go back to making classic 2D films instead of 3D ones. Chicken Little did nothing for me. Haven't they bought Pixar now? With the master of 3D animation in their posession, Disney doesn't need to compete itself. I read a little quote on the internet the other day from the head of the company, John Lasseter, mentioning that he was considering bringing 2D back to Disney. To paraphrase him, "If anyone is going to do 2D, it should be Disney". After a search on Google, i found this page (and a number of others), seeming to concur. I hope it's true soooooooo much. Disney has been a huge part of my childhood, and I want it to be the same for future generations. Hand drawn animation is, in my opinion, the most beautiful of all art forms and there is no reason that CGI should take over.

Anyway, I got a bit sidetracked there. Listen to the BBC show if you get a chance. If you have missed it, I have taken the liberty of recording it in mp3 format. If anyone wants it, send me an email to andylatham82@hotmail.com

Going Looney

Wow, it's been a whole month since I last added to the blog. I'm getting lazy! It doesn't mean I haven't been practicing my drawing though. I've been having a go at the Looney Tunes characters recently. I have always loved the style of these cartoons. Whereas I love the magic of Disney animation, I love the sheer rediculousness of the Looney Tunes.
I think all my copying of artwork has caused me to subconciously take on some of the finer construction details of characters. In particular, I have learned to give more meat to things like eye brows, making them feel more real. I plan to pay more attention to drawing bodies now. I'm going to the Zoo today, armed with a sketchbook and pencil in order to practice. Here's one of my characters, Dwain (and yes, I know I spelt it wrong!):