Lizzette Graham's Portfolio

This is my final walk cycle for my character katsu for my 2D animation class. We then took our walk cycles and imported them into Adobe After effects where we added a moving background, sounds and credits. Some of the challenges I faced was trying to keep all of my layers such as the bullies, the friend and katsu completely synced in a way that made sense to the story. In general, it was very challenging to complete the walk cycle. Overall, I really like how it came out and I think Katsu’s character is well told through this animation.

I wanted to keep the storyboard relevant to Katsu’s bio, which was her being a reserved girl who often gets bullied by other students because she isn’t a real cat like they are. So I wanted to show what a regular day in her life would be like.

My first attempt at After effects. The idea was to use some of the principles of animation for a shape. One thing I had a lot of trouble with was having consistent control over the anchor point and having the program do exactly what I want it to.

 

Here is a cleaned up version of my previous character walk cycle. I also added some color. The biggest challenges I faced was definitely coloring and synchronizing my layers and movements. I changed the tail movements to a drag with a quick flick and I made the ears go along with the movement of the body.I do think I got a bit better with the movement of the walk cycle. I would like to continue more shading as well.

Here is Katsu doing a walk cycle. She walks slow and cautious(because she is generally shy and reserved) but still an overall friendly demeanor.

I found it challenging to animate her legs because of how stubby they are. I also realized afterward that her hat was too big for her head. My goal next is to maybe design her legs longer and to add a bit more keyframes to get smoother movement.

Reference video:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBdRYuDXTEA&t=40s            (0.32-0.50secs.)

Katsu is a girl who dreams of being the greatest mage at her school. She is the only human amongst her feline classmates and used to get bullied a lot. Because of that, she hides her face, wears cat ears on her hat and wears a tail to try to blend in more. Katsu is very small, ditzy and shy. When she is not practicing her magic, she likes to eat a lot of delicious snacks!

I had a lot of fun creating this character. One challenge was deciding which mage look I wanted to go for, since there are so many ideas. But I think I captured her essence pretty well in her giant mage jacket and hat.

In this assignment, I had to convey emotion without relying on facial features for a flour sack. The emotion I wanted to convey was cautious/scared. We see the sack curious about touching the turtle but is easily frightened as soon as it moves. I found it challenging to capture the mass of a flour sack as it was in the air. I am generally happy with my frame transitions.

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