Leopard Animation

The second unit was about creating a leopard walk cycle using the leopard rig by Truong. Although this was not a new concept for me as I have tried making something similar before, it was considerably more advanced, resulting in a better looking more sophisticated animation.

This task helped me learn a lot of important animation concepts that I can remember and use in the other animations later. For example, how the legs should move at a constant rate when moving backwards. As this was a lot more advanced than the first unit, this animation did take me a couple of days to finish. Despite that, I am very proud of the final product. Although the tutorials didn’t include it, I decided to put into practice what I had learnt from the previous unit and add some overlapping action to the main walk cycle. Based on a video that I watched, which sadly I can no longer find, I added some tail movements, having it swish from side to side, as well as some bounce to the ears to help make the animation look more interesting.

UPDATE: Following constructive feedback from others on the course I have refined the movements in the back hips so they don’t move in such an exagerated way. This has definitly improved the final result because it looks more natural.

truong (2018) https://truongcgartist.gumroad.com. Available at: https://truongcgartist.gumroad.com/l/leopard.