Here’s the realistic counterpart of the cowboy shot (which still needs lots of reworking)- the realistic cowboy walk. I interpreted this character as being a zombie, and feel validated in this, as when I showed it to a small child he said “I think he’s a zombie!” This shot may be my second-best work for my FMP, the first being my Dana shot. It’s miles and miles better than my cartoonish cowboy shot.
When I first began working on this shot, I struggled to find a rig that worked well for me, and was near giving up when I finally, as always, reached out to Luke for help and discovered a solution in hours. We set the rig up with advanced skeleton, and from there it was extremely easy to animate with a video reference. I got it done smoothly with no problems, and it’s one of my favorite pieces of work now, especially in comparison with some of my early walk cycles when I first started the course.
I like the idea of giving it a Red Dead/Dark Souls kind of feel, so I have asked my sound designer friend from work if he’d be willing to incorporate some footsteps, music and ambiance to the shot to really give it a video game vibe. I was thinking of even using it as the title card of my showreel, with Skyrim-esque “UI” appearing on the right with my information and a box labeled “proceed” which a cursor clicks on. I’m only indecisive because the Dana shot is so good and I know most employers make their decision within seconds.
All that’s left is the final two shots. I’ve chosen an anthropomorphic tiger for the cartoon version, who will practice some karate moves before knocking over a basket of groceries, and when he sees a cucumber roll next to him he freaks out and jumps away like a cat. It’ll be a good demonstration of body mechanics as well as being comedic if I can pull it off. I think for the realistic version I’ll be using some of the samurais we have.