I did some experiments in terms of animation exercises based on the previous exercises. Some of them followed the recommendations from the feedback I received before, and some of them were just personal tests.

This bouncing cat was the first character I created in this program. I focused attention on complicated details when I tried to make this cat jump. I added some subtle movements such as the tail, fur, whiskers, and paws.

I paid too much attention to the details and ignored the overall smoothness. In order to add details, I added a pause after each jump of the character, these details and pauses make the cat’s movements look dragging. I modified them and tried to let the character jump more naturally.

I reduced redundant motions to enhance the clearness and force of the bounce. Additionally, I aimed to align the tail movements more closely with the shape of figure-eight.

This is my first time trying quadruped walking animation, it is more difficult for me to master than human walking. Sometimes the front and back half of the body look like they are moving separately when I am making.

At first, I chose to draw a dachshund because I thought that short legs required fewer details than long legs, so they were easier to draw. The above gif is my reference action demonstration, my dachshund animation was not as smooth as this demonstration. If I have time in the future, I would like to further research which part is causing my animation to look stiff.

I also practiced quadruped running, I felt that running is easier to get started than walking. This might be because the running movement range is larger and the number of frames required to draw is smaller than walking ones.

In subsequent attempts, I chose dogs with longer legs as training objects, which would help me more deeply understand the dynamics of quadruped walking, more details need to be focused on than dachshunds. I also tried to make the long-legged dog’s head shake violently with the body, but I am unsure if the head movement is correct. I tried many different movements by switching head directions and it still looked a bit unnatural.

In conclusion, I learned a lot of animation tips that I didn’t know before during this research and tests, but there are still many areas in animation that I need to learn and improve further.