47. unbalanced baby walk

Babies are mostly off balance when they walk. They use their arms to balance out and frequently loose balance and fall onto their hands. The large head has an immense amount of counter balance to the small body and undeveloped musculature which adds additional difficulty in their propulsion. 

The loss of balance on a leg raise is lengthened as the figure tries to recapture the momentum manoeuvring first body then the small arms in order to be able to step forward. This walk was challenging as its a bipedal walk which has elements of a quadrupedal due to the transitional walk cycle of someone learning the basics of walking on two feet through trial and error. The walk has 24 frames in total and is done on 2s. The accents are added to the leg raises and placement in-between in order to exaggerate the movement achieving a 'full limited animation' (Similar to Mitsuo Iso).

46. full on goofy walk

Summarising everything I learnt and inspired by re-watching old Disney cartoons I went ahead to achieve a more complex walk. (primarily Goofy) 

There are 24 frames in total and it's animated on 2s. The characters feet are placed all over the place and though there are no breaks in the limbs it creates a erratic expression of forward motion. The arms are position in a nonchalant swing maintaining the balance of the body at complex foot and knee twists which happen at the raise and placement of each foot. It is a happy walk as the leg is swung back and then joyously shaken towards the front placement, bending the foot itself in order to exaggerate the grip and toe/heel direction. the head is kept straight with a slight lean back. this mimics the torso as the lower abdomen is pulling on the upper crating locomotion. 

45. inverted goofy walk

In the spirit of Goofy and his oddball walks I wanted to try out something similar today. Goofy characters, and the namesake thereof generally walk with their feet inverted pointing inwards. This is a trait in quite a few fumetti by Magnus. (i.e.Alan Ford)

The inverted feet syndrome bring their own challenges. The walk becomes gawky similar to that of a bird as the feet are se in place scooping the ground inwards. In order to provide counterbalance to this arms are waived high keeping the figure just on balance. Another aspect to be explored in future would be of a goofier walk where the feet end up inverted, like having two left ones throughout the push of cycles and adding an element of randomness to it. A good example would be George (Goofy) learns to dance by Disney 1957. 

44. torso swing-arm swingier

Expanding on the arm swinging from last time I decided to exaggerate the whole movement. I swung the whole toss from side to side. It is inevitable that in this movement the shoulders will create pivotal points especially as the arms are pivoting loosely from them. 

The shoulder line and the hip line create an antagonistic relationship as the legs are propelling the figure forward. In order to achieve this study I started by doing a leg cycle of a simple forward optimistic stroll. To this I added torso, initially without arms in order to create the swing and the sway of the body twisting the waistline as the hips cycle. Finally the arms were added keeping the movement loose and springy in both of them. Head is following the chest line through the walk. 

43. slacker arm delay swing

Experimenting with the scoop of the body today I decided to work on the arm swings a bit more. Instead of using them to support the body weight I opted them fora a lazy slacker walk similar to walk No.12. The main difference is in keeping a realistic bone structure, a push and drag of the back foot and pushing the chest forward. Additionally I wanted to have the arms floppy and a bit lazy so they have a full frame deal in the actions in the swing of the forward body momentum. This gives the character a light step appearance even though the push off frame is small with a lean forward. 

42. pendulum scoop

Going back to the simple walk cycles I wanted to add another layer to otherwise normal walk. I added a strong swing from left to right on the push off step, giving a body a pendulum swing forward. 

In order for this walk to function I had to lower the low key frame adding an scooping in-between allowing the body to have momentum in order to swing backwards. 

The foot is dragged across the floor in order to provide additional stability to such an action and the forward step is at an onward angle giving a drag gin power to the body at hand. The arms are used to balance the figure during the option and the head is loose with neck holding it anchored to the chest as the figures centre changes with the swing forward creating a sickle arc. 

41. silhoutte geo-step

This time I wanted to concentrate on overall shapes of the body when doing a walk instead of individual movement. I started with a triangular body and the momentum would be built in within the geometric shape until it reaches trapezium only to become a triangle again. Once the shape looked like it was doing a walk I added the motion of legs filling in the negative shapes in order to retain geometrical and stylised walk cycle. Finally arms were added last as a counterbalance to the whole cycle. This walk style offers a lot for style and creation of momentum, however it does not have much opening for a bounce without loosing the geometric silhouette qualities.