How To Animate Someone Walking Towards You

In this tutorial I will be taking you through the steps of how to animate a character walking in place. Basically you will be creating a walk that loops infinitely, and so if y'all were to incorporate a walk like this into a movie, perhaps the background would exist scrolling from right to left behind the character to give the illusion of forward movement.

A walking character is one of the most important things to learn as an animator. Animation is all about creating the illusion of movement. I of the things that characters do the most to get around and move is walking! And so let'due south get to it!

1. Depict Our Main Walking Poses

Step 1

Commencement by drawing the floor guidelines. When I animate a walk, I like to draw a guideline for each foot then that the footfalls are consistent. We are animating a simple side view walk, but the foot that is farthest from us volition be slightly further back than the foot that is closest to u.s.. In order to make this illusion convincing, the character can't be floating all over the identify. The character needs to be grounded.

Stride ii

Draw our first pose/extreme. I like to start with the character in mid-stride. The leg closest to us (the right leg) is making contact with the ground. We are working rough, and our walking character is a simple automaton with a round head, so I've only indicated the eyes with dots. We volition merely animate the legs and body; the arms we will animate later. Let's concentrate on getting the legs right beginning.

Pace iii

Draw our second farthermost, in which the leg in the back is passing the leg in the front. The foot closest to u.s.a. (the graphic symbol's correct foot) is flat and grounded and is sliding back. Of course, he's not actually sliding, merely to give the illusion of walking in place, the feet "slide".

Notice how the body is higher upwards now. In most cases, people do non stay the aforementioned height equally they walk—they bob up and down as 1 leg passes the other. Even though the leg farthest from us is partially blocked by the front leg, let's make certain the leg "attaches" correctly to his hip on the side uttermost from u.s.a.. Don't be afraid to work crude and sketch through the body to work out where the leg attaches.

Step 4

Let's draw our third extreme pose. Now the back leg is forrad and the front end leg is back. Don't forget to go on lining up those tootsies to the flooring guidelines!

The superlative of the character'southward body should be at the same level as the first extreme. It's pretty much the same pose equally our beginning extreme, except the legs are reversed.

Stride five

Permit's draw our 4th extreme. At present the character's body is college upward because the front end leg is passing the back leg—the body is at the same level equally our second extreme.

Permit'south meet how our walk looks and then far! Looking practiced! Now let'south sweeten information technology and add some in-betweens!

2. In-Between Our Poses

Step 1

Let's add together an in-betwixt betwixt extreme 1 and 2. Detect how that back pes is starting to come up and that front foot is making first contact with the footing. You don't desire the dorsum leg to showtime to come up earlier the front end foot makes contact with the footing, or the character would fall on his face. No matter what drawing y'all are at, in-betwixt or extreme, the character should e'er be balanced!

Step 2

At present add an in-between between our second and tertiary extreme. Keep checking that the feet are not floating and that the character looks grounded.

in-between between our second and third extreme

Let'south take a await at that in-between in relation to our 2d and third extremes. When I animate an in-between, I like to favor the drawing that I am animating towards.

in-between in relation to our second and third extremes

Stride 3

At present let'due south add an in-betwixt between our tertiary and fourth extreme.

in-between between our third and fourth extreme

Step 4

Finally, permit's add an in-between between our quaternary extreme and our first extreme. This makes our beginning drawing our terminal drawing, making it a true animation bicycle that loops infinitely. Wow, that's a lot of walking!

in-between between our fourth extreme and our first extreme

Permit's see how it looks so far! Nice! Information technology's just missing one affair...

3. Breathing the Arms

Nosotros still need artillery! Now that nosotros have the feet and body looking good and moving well, let'due south add the artillery. It depends on your blitheness—the character may be conveying something and the arms wouldn't have to motion, or mayhap your character is common cold and his hands are in his pockets. In this case, I'm going to show y'all a elementary walk with the character's arms swinging with the walk.

We'll add arms to the extremes one through four start, and so add the arms to our in-betweens, in the aforementioned gild in which we drew them.

The artillery usually swing opposite to the legs: the correct arm swings forwards every bit the left leg moves forward and so on.

Footstep i

Add arms to the first extreme. The arm closest to the states is swinging dorsum, and the leg uttermost from us is moving back.

Footstep 2

Add arms to the 2nd extreme. The arms are in mid-swing. I "cheated" the arm farthest from united states of america so we can see information technology peeking from behind the body, but normally the arm would probably exist directly behind the torso and would be blocked birthday.

Stride 3

Add together arms to the third farthermost.

Step 4

Add arms to the fourth extreme. The arms are in mid-swing.

Step 5

Now add together arms to the drawing between your offset and second extreme.

Arms added to the drawing between first and second extreme

Footstep vi

Now become ahead and add your artillery to the balance of your in-betweens, making sure you in-between the arms' swinging activeness. Don't forget to work crude and not go bogged downwardly with making it look perfect. It is important that you become the animation to piece of work and look convincing before you worry about adding detail.

Permit's take a look… Looks bully!

4. Tighten Up Our Animation Drawings

Now that we have our animation looking sweet, we can lose the cherry-red floor guidelines and start tightening upwards the line for our walking character. I'1000 still working lose with an ink line, but making things neater such as neatening upward the roundness of the head, making sure the eye looks skillful in all frames, fixing the thickness of the artillery and legs, etc…

I left my rough line in calorie-free greyness and am inking my terminal line in nighttime green so nosotros can see the line against the greyness.