The Walk Sequence

The walk cycle is an essential sequence of movement in animation. After drawing someone in different positions of a regular walking movement you can produce frames to make your figure look as though it's walking on the spot or walking forwards or backwards.

This sequence of figures is made up of nine different positions, the more different positions you have, the more realistic the flow of the walk looks. You can use as little as four frames for your walk sequence however your walk will look less fluent. 

Using the sequence above as a template for my sequence, I created a layer for the template and another layer on top for my figure tracings. I proceeded to trace over each figure on the correct frame. Then using the lasso tool I separated each figure. 

The next stage was to create another layer called Guideline on which I drew a line as the 'floor' for my figure to walk on. I then place the first figures feet on the line and drew a dot above it's head, still on the guideline layer, to help with positioning. I inserted the guideline frame into nine frames as I had nine different figure drawings. I then locked the guideline so the only drawings that moved were the figures. 

On the Figures layer I moved each figure onto the guideline, each on a new keyframe so that the next frame didn't include the figure from the frame before. After completing this for the nine frames of each figure I deleted everything from the template layer and deleted all of the original traced images, leaving just the figure on the guideline. 

Finally I added a look to the sequence and slowed the FPS down to seven, this left me with a realistic walk sequence.