Over the summer leading to my start of my university course, I wanted to set myself some small animation challenges. The first of these was to create a fully looping walk cycle - but with a twist. As a part-time wheelchair user, I decided that I would animate a character wheeling themself along in a manual chair, as this form of movement interested me greatly and I expected it not to be something that we would cover in class to any extent. I chose to use a character that I had designed previously for this project, named Noelle.
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| Noelle, March 2017 |
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I started with a basic sketch of a wheelchair, changed slightly from previous designs, and mapped out the frames with a stick figure. I used my own range of movement when in my chair to get a feel for which parts of the figure would feature the most movement - these were the arms and spine.
After a few attempts to smooth this sequence, I was happy with the result and ready to flesh out the sketch a little more. I filled the stick figure out into a full person, and explored the ways that the head might tilt with the movement of the body, settling for a steady forward-facing gaze. I also payed close attention to the movement of the hands, as this plays an important part in making the movement of the wheelchair user look realistic.
From here, I added more details to my sketch, giving the Noelle clothing and hair.
Finally I drew the lineart for each frame and added colour to the animation. In the final version, I slowed the framerate slightly from the sketches as the character appeared to be moving unnaturally fast.
If I were to do this exercise again, I would explore slow-in slow-out techniques further, particularly at the end of the movement as Noelle lifts her hands off the handrim and pulls them back to push again, adding more frames to the sequence in order to make the animation more fluid and realistic.
