Reading: The Animator's Survival Kit

Within pages 102 - 131 of the Animator's Survival Kit, I leared a couple of things. 1. I learned that a walk is souly built from clear sequences of four stages contact, passing positions, up - down - and or sideways. Another thing that I learned is that even though walking does indeed look fairly simple, every step actually does have weight shifts, drops, timing, and even arcs that have the responsibilites to work together. After further reading I now know that character's aren't just sliding fowards to create movement. Their hips drop from planting and impact as well as creating a rising momentum when reseting and vise versa as both legs switch that role. I also now know that those small tiny changes in spacing or even timing can be a make or break situation to have a repeating leg movement. I also learned that many personalities can come from different variations, and I don't mean from changing just the basic mechanics of the walk. For example a confident walk might have a very exaggerated long stride with the hips standing high. While a more exhausted walk would drag the foot and slump the body causing the hips to dip and not stand tall. Williams further explains that once you figure out the very basic standard walk you can then adjust it and change it to communicate your character's personalities. Finally, I realized how much the arms really do matter when trying to create a walking style. The arm swing isn't just there for extra movement. It actually creates a good balance for the body and keeps the movement either looking smooth or even stiff. All in all walking is one of the hardest things to properly animate as it has a lot that you need to combine at once. But, if you can get it to all work together simultaneously then you have a walk of your own.