Finally finished the walk cycle for the 60s counter culture march!

I loved immersing myself in that time period, looking through photos and listening to the music, and I could easily have just done that for weeks without creating anything but… the beauty of deadlines made me get to work. I initially began with a nudist male marcher but then changed that as it seemed like a lost opportunity to explore some colours and styles.

I looked through some of my old doodles for character ideas and found my new character in a page from a book I made last year called ‘The Doldrums’ (on the right).

I also took some ideas from fashions of the time:

Then I animated step by step, first just her legs:

Then added her swinging arm:

Then added her marching arm:

Finally I added her hair which I animated straight ahead:

Once the line test and movement was done, I experimented with different colours in pastels until I finally found the right ones and then traced over each of the line test frames.

In the end, the final product seems quite simple even though I spent hours making decisions and editing the movements but.. that is the nature of animation I suppose : )

M