She just goes on and on and on and on and on…

Playing with talking animations and deciding on how much I should animate on her. Her hands will move, as will her hair (ever so slightly, though)…what about the head? Should it bob a bit? And her body? Maybe I’ll have her sway a bit…kind of lurch forward. I’m pretty happy with her speech pattern, though. It’s made up of about 9 different frames set to 14 frames of looping animation. I might triple the number of frames (using the original 9 mouths) and have her lurch in the middle. Slowly. That would also give me 42 frames to play with her arms and head.

Her expression is a little too happy…but it made me think, “hey, what if I have two different talking loops–one happy, the other kind of straight?”

That would make a left happy talking, a left straight talking, a right happy talking, a right straight talking, a front happy talking, and a front straight talking. 252 frames.

Since she’s kind of short, I thought I might have her tilt her head when talking to taller characters. I don’t think I’d need front animations for this. 420 frames. I’ll have her face the camera to talk for her back talking animations.

Eek.

Not 100% accurate, but you know what, it’s more than Capcom or SNK ever did. Still need to add shading, then her walking animations will be complete. I really do like the awkward hunching shuffle.

This started off as a quick sketch before bed and…well, you know how it goes by now. The first color stuck pretty close to her flats and, while I liked them, I thought it might be fun to take more of a risk and try some coloring styles that I wasn’t use to.  The result? Not sure, I need sleep.

Oh, here’s the original sketch, from reference:

It’s late for this old man, but I wanted to get this first attempt posted before turning in. Rusholme Ruffians, coincidentally, are supplying some (all?) background tunes for the as-yet-unamed-and-very-early-in-development-game. If you could see me, I’m crossing my fingers. I’m also partially nude, for whatever that’s worth. $.99 per minute on my exclusive webcam network *queue sexy music*

Quick update before bed. I was going through the old sketchbooks looking for paper I could still use (desperate for sketch paper) and came across this unfinished piece. I think I posted it a year ago. Anyway, I kind of liked it so I I thought I might finish it, or at the very least touch up the sketch. Needs work, obviously, I know, but I think I can salvage it.

And for the record, I picked up new sketchbooks thanks to Mama Plott sacrificing her 50% Michael’s coupons.  Thanks, Mom!

Also, don’t panic, work on the game continues.

I need to back away from this one for a bit before I decide whether or not to rework it.  The posture’s dead on, I think, but the arms aren’t moving like they do in here up/down movement. I tried it but because of the hair it just looked kind of weird, like her arm was shrinking. I don’t think the shading would save it either.

She disagrees!

This is part of her walking animation…haven’t messed with the hair too much, but I’m pleased with the effect.  Her body is going to be a pain. I’ve drawn the animation out on paper and it looks great. Actually animating it, though, it loses something. Granted, she was headless when I tried it but still…

I couldn’t resist…I had to see what it would look like. These are just key frames (thus the rapid shuffling), but you know, it’s kind of cute. I wasn’t too thrilled with the walking but it’s growing on me. I’ll sleep on it and see what changes I can make to it tomorrow.

Ditched the Kirby body and gave her a bit more definition. Let’s see the forward animation again…

Shadows need work, but now that they bulk of it’s there it’ll be a lot easier to adjust. For now I’m okay with it. Next, left and right walking.

The best animation I’ve ever done. One frame of perfection.  Just posting this so I can study it later.

Ranka Lee adds her two cents to my animation doodles.

And now from the back. No hair animation or shading yet–basically just wanted to see how it would look. Need to let it sink in. So far I like it but who knows, moody artist syndrome. Arms/hands are a little thick…

This is definitely more like it. I added some inbetweens to the previous walk and, while the speed was better, something looked off. I then remembered my original walking idea and searched the blog for it…and there it was. Scrunching.

It’s not perfect, but I am way happier with this one. She features inbetweens, too, which is why she’s walking a lot smoother. I think once I add shadows it’ll be even more apparent that she’s kind of scrunching over. Scrunch. I love that word. Scrunch scrunch scrunch!

Update: And here’s a little bit of shadow and hair work…