Keyframe your walk cycle animation by roughing out quick pencil sketches of your character in action one frame at a time. Number the frames to keep them in order. Each frame is one position of the character, situated in time and space, through the progress of the walk cycle. Concentrate on correct body positioning and limb placement to create the entire walk cycle series of frames.
Instructions
1. Create the keyframes with a clean sheet of paper secured with clips or masking tape to your drawing surface, preferably a light table.
2. Use a pencil to star and mark out the perimeter of the frame on the paper.
3. Divide the frame directly in half with a pencil line straight down the center of the frame.
4. Decide how many frames will comprise the full animation walk cycle. For example, if you have 15 frames for the entire cycle, so that frames one and 15 are nearly identical, frame 15 brings the character back to the starting point of the walking motion.
5. Sketch out the basic lower body skeletal structure of the animation character in the starting position of the walk cycle. Position your character so the pencil line bisects the frame and bisects the character. This ensures that the character's placement in each frame will be identical.
6. Add the hip joints, knee joints, ankle joints and indicate a contact point, i.e., where the striding foot makes contact with the ground surface. Number this frame as "Keyframe 1."
7. Place a clean sheet on your table and secure it as in Step 1.
8. Mark out the frame and bisect it as you did in Steps 3 and 4.
9. Sketch out the lower body skeletal structure of the animated character in the second position of the walk cycle's sequence of movement. Label this frame "Keyframe 3."
10. Repeat steps 7 though 9, numbering the successive keyframes "Keyframe 5," "Keyframe 7," "Keyframe 9," until you reach "Keyframe 15." The even-numbered keyframes are called "in betweens" and they come later, during the cleaning up phase of the animation process. They are not part of the initial keyframing process.
11. Pencil Keyframe 15 to look almost identical if not exactly like Keyframe 1. This brings the animated character back to its starting point in the walking motion and ensures that the movement of the character is a continuous, seamless motion always centered in the frame.
12. Go back and add the animated character's upper body. Pay attention to its head and arm placement as you did its leg joint placement in the lower body for each frame.
