Double Bounce Walk

I've been looking at different animation styles for a while and am now starting to get into the paractical work ny actually aniamting in some of these styles. I've started off with a Double Bounce Walk ('rubber hose' animation is a logical place to start in terms of timeline and also in methods of learning animation), experimenting with different types of characters using Flash.

I used this really helpful tutorial from John Kricfalusi's blog, which gives a step by step on a double bounce walk from Flip the Frog.

This was the first test, using a generic, simple character, making it easy to animate. It works, but not quite as well as with the 'macaroni' style characters traditionally animated in this style, whose limbs are longer and would provide a bigger opportunity for exaggeration. It becomes clearer if you listen with the soundtrack which has a 10 frame beat, matching the animation.

By looking at the limbs I realised the actual steps work quite independantly of the bounce so I then did another version of the walk and tried to exaggerate the 'ups' and 'downs' in the movement, hoping this would help convey the bounce.





Not really sure if this helps or just makes the body appear as if it's over-deforming (although this could be to do with a poor lines of movement on the head - needs more arcs!). Could maybe even push the axaggeration further but with this design I'm not sure that it would help.

The next tests uses the basic shape of the conventional character usually animated in this style and I feel that the walk and bounce come across much clearer and the floppy feet and bendy legs help to convey the stylised motion. The arm in the reference video stays in the same position throughout the cycle but has an unnatural, rope-like movement which adds to the humorous nature of the walk (for now I have omitted the arms in this test).

This style definitely conveys a happy, energetic character and this walk wouldn’t be suited to a solemn mood for example, but the style of (floppy/bendy/rubber hose) animation possibly could.

And it seems the style of character does impact on the way the animation is read, and so this may only be suitable for certain designs.