Walking exercises

Walking!

Walk cycles are notoriously hard to achieve. The students worked on developing two cycles, one side view one front view. The idea is that they should be the same character and same walk. easier said than done. The basic cycle needs to be planned out, extreme keys, passing position and in-betweens. Once the legs are working, add in the arms and the head motion and any secondary action.

So here are the walk cycles the students have worked on.

The characters bear some familiarity...

Head turns

The 3rd exercise: Head Turns

Looking at expression, distortion and timing to express an action

The theory goes that with the addition of more inbetweens you can add different meaning to the action

So the exercise is to make two sequences, one basic head turn then a developed sequence with additional frames. And here are the results for my students work and a quick one from me...

Fun!

Bouncing Balls

Yep it's exercise time and my 7 faithful first years are exploring the possibility of the bouncing ball... Gravitional forces, weight, bouncability, stretch and squash, connecting and timing are all part of the lesson. Once they have mastered their bounce they can then explore one of the infinite possibilities that are opened by this one small boing...
It's funny how the seemingly simplest thing can open up so many new possibilities, problems and questions about life the universe and everything, well maybe I am exaggerating a little bit, but for this simple exercise their future will be shaped. From now all motion will be analysed, explored shaped and and reconstituted into new worlds... I love it.And here's how they did...