Module 1 Walking Cycle

Progress and Time Management

Time Plan:

I created a timetable of how long it would take for me to do a drawing. I gave myself 1 week at most and at least 3-4 hours a day to create the assets, artwork, animation, editing, and stylising. I believe this worked efficiently as when I prepared my timetable I made sure I followed it every day, as if I had to hand it in within a week to give me that extra push even though I didn’t.

Document Daily/Weekly Progress:

I felt like I was behind schedule at first as the drawings were taking a while to do, as I changed my mind on my character. I still manage to complete my character on time with all the movements been correctly drawn out so I believe I stayed on target as I wanted to.  I underestimated my work load and next time will give me more time as this lead to not fully being a head of plan. 

Uploaded Images

Here shows my walking cycle of my character. As you can see I did a simple walk to show the key movements of the cycle. By changing the leg, arms and hat you can clearly see a movement. This turned out to be a hard module to do as mastering a sequence of a walk is harder than I imagined. I feel as if I was able to get the key movements but next time I want to try something harder such as running and adding colour to the character. 

Strengths and Weaknesses

Overall my strengths for the project went really well as I worked through what I was supposed to do, and always looked back on references so I knew exactly what I was doing.  However I did have weaknesses as well as strengths which meant I had to deal with issues such as I found it difficult to get the key movements correct as sometimes when playing my loop the walking cycle didn't look completely correct. In order to get this right, I had to draw out my character movements again, but I finally got it to work properly. I resolved this by looking at Muybridge work and researching online at key movements. With it being hand drawn, I didn't have much time to colour it in Photoshop which is what I would of liked to have done in the future as of course it would look better. But I am impressed I was able to get idea across and was able to prove I can create a character showing movement.  I did however colour and line work one of my images just so I could see what it looked like.

 I did overcome my weaknesses and was able to make my work better by knowing I had them. The strengths I had was always making sure I had no weaknesses and if I did I would work on them. I put a lot of effort into this module, and I will keep doing so with other modules. So any weaknesses I still have I will overcome them in over modules as I will always keep practising and improving on my work. 

The threats I had en-counted was, that I was found it difficult to get the key movements correct as sometimes when playing my loop the walking cycle didn't look completely correct. This lead to me redrawing some of my hand drawn drawings but I finally got it working properly as I kept researching others work similar to my own. Keeping the same proportions of the body was hard as I could never get it just right, but then realised to make it easier for myself I could trace my own images, and change the movement of the leg and arms at the same time, which helped a whole lot. I felt like I've dealt with my problems very well as I've just kept going at it and trying as hard as I can.

Progression through this module

My progression though this has been very successful. I was able to follow all the requirements and get everything completed on time. It was very difficult as with me starting late in the course I had a lot of work that needed to be caught up on but I'm very happy with my overall work. I feel I have achieved my goals and aims and done a successful character in motion by using very basic tools.

Applying Numeracy to a Project to achieve a final outcome

Keeping the same proportions of the body was hard as I could never get it just right, but then realised to make it easier for myself I could trace my own images, and change the movement of the leg and arms at the same time, which helped a whole lot.  If I had the chance to now however, I would make more changes on my character as there is always room for improvement, but I would make his hands and legs a bit better as his toes and fingers are all different sizes and out of proportions. Its good to always refer to your own hands and feet even if you are drawing a cartoon as when drawing i've been taught if you drawing your hand/feet while watching it its a better outcome than you would get if you were copying someones drawing online. 

Personal Development Plan

The objectives for week 1 are to make sure my idea is in place and know what I want to do to the character, what type of movement it will do extra. Week 2 I will work on the development of of my project and draw out my character. I will take time to make the character look as if it is simply walking. Week 3 will be putting it onto dragon software so that you are able to clearly see the movement i have given the character. 

Inspirational Work

 Eadweard Muybridge influenced my work as he was able to create a series of studies which included human and animal life and movement. From seeing his examples it made me think of my own, so I used the same techniques he did and begin researching into what would be my moving character   He used a plain backdrop to stop unwanted parts from getting in the way of the background; he then photographed in front of the backdrop then observed the process of the movements that were being made.  He would shot these shots several times a second to make the images look like they were in a constant loop of movement but indeed were simple separate images.  

Refection and Evaluation 

Overall I found the project manageable but hard as I have other modules to do as well as this one but I felt that I have managed my time appropriately and therefore got the work done on schedule. I’ve had a lot more pressure with having more modules to do by I think having the pressure has helped me to do better and made me prepared if I get that amount of work all at one time.

I believe I did achieve my overall aims and objectives as I was set out to do as much hard work as possible. I put a lot of effort into my research so my end project would look as good as it could. My main aim was to make sure my character did a walking cycle and I know for sure I succeeded.  My animation was fit for purpose as I did exactly what the assignment told me to do and made my character do a walking cycle like it would do in a cartoon clip.