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Obviously quite an unfinished shot here, but in its current state, I thought it offered some good insight into my very dumb animation practices.

Some big nerd: Start by working out the key poses of your character, let your character's walk be a reflection of their emotion

Me, all the time: Walking? Feet do that. Better make some feet. Make feet walk. The body will just have to keep up with whatever they end up doing

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Anonymous

i sometime do it the other way around... For some character, in similar technique. Walking ? Animates body, feet will follow

David Keyworth

That probably works well for some of the strange-bodied creatures you tend to have, but I think it's often a poor idea for other art styles that have more concrete, visible bone structure to them and/or long legs. What makes walkcycles often difficult is that it's not one moving piece affecting all the others - it's a lot of things all affecting each other's weight and positioning.

felixcolgrave

True! I’m not meaning to suggest that this method is the best for every character design, or for any other animator. This isn’t a tutorial, I was simply showing a behind-the-scenes of how I’d tackled this shot, and that it’s a regular part of my toolkit.
 I completely agree that every character design has its own set of considerations when making it move. If the snark in my post was trying to say anything, it was advocating experimenting with technique, and developing methods that feel natural to you instead of treating textbook methods as gospel. Seeing someone do something differently isn't necessarily a cue to copy them, but I often find it can be a helpful reminder that there are other ways to approach familiar problems.