2D Tiger Walk Cycle. Critique?

[Lundkaon]

Heya!
This is my first post showing one of my works! I hope I'm doing it right!

probably took a month to make this!How embarassed I am. But, yea, I haven't worked on it on a daily basis. I was gonna color it, but...eh, I've spent too much time on this already so I probably won't fix anything, but I would appreciate some useful tips and critique.

Frames: 39
On twos

This is my first walk cyle...ever. So it's not perfect lol of course not. But, dude, how crazy am I? Never made a walk cycle and then decided to start with a quad animal?

The stripes are not great and either is the tail. I know. The stripes were meant to move all by themselves, as they had their own mind, since the character is a magician. FAIL. Also, I can see the tail looses volume and that the hind legs sorta snap a little.

I hope some will ejoy it. At least my effort. HAHA
Feedback appreciated.

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OBS: If the animation, for some reason, lag to people using Google Chrome, you can watch it HERE.

[Smashed_Pumpkin]

Whoa whoa whoa! Stop being so critical of your work. This is great stuff! The movements are really good, the structure is staying pretty consistent and it reads very well.

The most obvious issue I can see is the fact that the front and back legs are moving at different rates. I think you've fallen into the trap of leaving all the feet on the ground for the same amount of time even though they have a different stride length. You should instead have them moving at the same rate while they are on the ground and vary their movement rate while they are lifted. Another way to think about it is if you imagine that the front legs are on their own little conveyor belt and the back legs on a different one. The back legs' conveyor belt would actually be moving faster than the front one. Or place your finger on one of the front feet as it touches the ground and then follow it back, then keep moving backwards onto the back foot that has just landed and follow it back too. You'll notice that you have to speed up when you reach the back foot. The result of this would be that when you tiger is viewed actually moving over a surface, one of his pairs of legs will appear to slight slightly depending on what speed he is moving overall.

You mentioned the stripes and tail, they could probably use some work true, but they're not terrible. Having that many intersecting lines does make it easy for things to look jumpy but considering how complex the lines you have are, I think you've done a pretty damn good job of it. As for the tail, to me it looks a bit like a living snake and so it's movement seems appropriate. The problem with animating a tail in a cycle like this is that it's very hard to make it do anything that actually looks good. If you were to put a beautiful swish, full of follow-through it would look silly being repeated over and over yet if you do just a subtle movement it might look too stiff or lacking in life, it's a tough one regardless of what you do and again I think you've managed to make it look pretty good.

[Northtouch]

This is... really good to be perfectly honest. For a first try especially. Very clean, has a nice flow to it. I guess all i can say is that the front right foot just beore it touches the ground, it does it very fast. I dont think there are any inbetweens there, just one should do to smooth it out.

Gotta agree with above, the legs dont sync BUT honestly i didnt take notice of that at until later, which means your on the right path.

But seriously, great stuff.

[PLeon]

Everything else is fine, yes the tale could use some work but is not as noticeable or important as the legs. It's very good, just not very consistent. It's very fixable however, if you ever wanna go back to it, or do another animal walk cycle, check this out.

[Lewis]

Nice design! And overall the animation is good.

If I were you I would take a look at the back right leg. It's not lifted up enough. Now it seems like it's dragged over the floor. Another effect of this little problem is that the eye won't see distinction between the right and left leg.

Other than that, good stuff!

[sachaB]

Looks great. I don't have much of a problem with the legs. Maybe another drawing after the passing position but nothing too drastic. Good guide is always Richard Williams' Animal walk cycle. It looks like you may have traced the same head for each drawing. Can I suggest some secondary movement on the ears and maybe a bit of squash and stretch (subtle) on the head in the up and downs?
Hope to see more.

[Lundkaon]

Wow, I thought i had already replied to this! I'm really sorry for the delay!
Thank you so much for everyone who gave me feedback on this! I really really do appreciate!

Smashed Pumpkin: Yes! I really really can see what you're talking about the legs! For some reason I totally got lost while making this and while looking my references. I will be sure to pay more attention to such things when I try again. This animation was very confusing to me, because I've never attempted something like this and that my animation skills (including eyes) aren't that sharp....yet.
And thank you very much for the highlights and everything! They were very useful!

Northtouch: Thank you for the tip! I will try to pay attention to that!
I just still have a very hard time to analyze the whole animation while it's in motion. ): So I can try to fix the mistakes. My eyes are apparently too new for that.

PLeon: Thank you for the image with the tumbnails!
What's funny is that I actually used two references for this, both videos (one being an animation, the other being a live tiger), I spent a lot of time with the thumbnails and they seemed right when played them on Flipbook. After I actually got started on the animation itself, which took a lot of time due to some newbie mistakes, things started to look weird.

Lewis: Gonna try that! Thanks!

sachaB: Oh yes!! I used two video references for this and also Richard William's, how could I forget! His book helped me to know which are the keyframes for a quad walk cycle, however the tiger videos helped me more with their "style" of walking.
As for the head, I traced them, it was an intentional thing that I thought that could work...i like some flat stuff sometimes. But I will totally try more variation on future walks and such, it can look better! Thank you very much!

[Lundkaon]

I think I should make this topic my personal animation sketchbook, I guess. Better than creating new topics!
(sorry for double commenting, for some reason, I couldnt edit my last post)

[PLeon]

yes. you should. Post that dancing animation you did with your class that's on your blog dammit >:/

[Lundkaon]

HAHA! I did already, but it's on another thread.
So I will have a car to upload, this should be fun!

[Lundkaon]

HAHA! I did already, but it's on another thread.
Sooon I will have a car to upload, this should be fun!