Deeper Focus - Rough Character Animation

During the messy series I experimented with character animation using oil pastels and I found it really rewarding. I decided to take a character design and animate a walk cycle to test how the boil of the oil pastels will loop. The pastels tend to get faded out as work progresses so I wanted to come up with a system that would keep the boil from jumping or clicking as the cycle refreshed and began anew.

The first step was to establish a very simple design to work with. My previous grandmother and grandfather designs were much too complicated and involved a lot of line work for each character. I decided to design basic shapes that fit together, and animate a fairly basic cycle.

I completed the linework for the animation in TV Paint this time. It was a much better experience than using Flash in my opinion. The timeline has definitely been developed considering the needs of animators and the brushes can produce a really lovely hand-drawn aesthetic.