Kai's Walk Cycle

Making a detailed character , i knew i would encounter some problems but being stubborn as i'am
I was determined to find a way to keep him true to the character sheet.
I knew one problem was keeping all that detail of his muscles etc natural whilst kai walked.
2. How he would walk as he had fin like feet and his legs were like hind quarters so the walk itself would be difficult even though kai is bi-pedal.

The teacher suggested to me to look for reference of a creature that was similar and take screen shots of the frames and then trace those outlines as a guide for kai's walk cycle.

Problems i encountered: When capturing the frames i captured were too few and the poses between each frame, it was such a big gap between each other that i couldn't really use them.
On the up side it was a good idea to base my walk cycle on.

Here are the frames i took that i was to use as my walk guide from Youtube;










You get the idea


In flash i used this as my background to help me with my walk cycle
Image from Animator's Survival Kit by Kit Richardson...i think thats the name.

The background i already had a strong idea of what i wanted. I wanted him to be in a ruined/destroyed city as in Kai's profile states. I'm drawn to night scenes so i wanted it to be that time .... i don't know why i feel nostalgic when night falls so i'm sure Kai feels that way too :p

Here is the progression of my background;


The night bg is a gradient, and drew the moon aswell as using gradients both done in Flash.


The ruined city is meant to be ground zero of a destroyed Sydney, which i did in Illustrator and imported it into Flash.



To make the walk i started to use the bone tool and break Kai into individual parts as use him as my rough walking guide and then i would re-draw each frame individually (drawing 48+ frames is insane :|...). I wanted it to be natural but in the end it looked like he was sneaking, but i find it rather befitting because he is walking through a war zone... so he should "sneak" past the dangers of ground zero

Here is a screenshot of how i was using the bone tool;



After many long hours and my left hand cramping up and becoming numb because of drawing each individual frame... here is Kai's walk cycle, it may not be perfect but i love it that he is 'sneak walking' :) its hard not to grow attached it after putting in so much work/pain

Kai - The Creation

A rough sketch of Kai in my sketchbook


Rough layout of the character design sheet



One of the sketch in illustrator - i will put more in and from my sketch book when i remember :|



Here is the final layout for Kai.

Character design - Inspired Images

After i had finished the profiling i immediately had some pictures/reference that i already had in mind, such as amphibians e.g frogs , the human muscular outline so i could draw upon it when i drew my character in illustrator.
Recently i saw pirates of the Caribbean 3 i think it was boring but the effects were good to look at and the character that really caught my attention was the evil nemesis Davy Jones - the tentacles i liked to use as a feature as well on my character.

Here are some of the images i that helped me developed my character;


Muscle drawing since i wanted my character to be a very tall person - male but almost like a giant " a big bear" with lots of muscles.


The character that caught my attention and felt i could incorporate into my character developement


Another amphibian i could think of that looked interesting - Axolotl hmmm i think i want one as a pet!


Frogs! i looked at mostly their legs - webbed feet something i could use .
I don't know why but to me it looked humanoid to me




And Character concepts as a template for mine

Some examples of template layouts that i could use








A character design from Blizzard

Character Design - profile

In the end i chose the latter , i felt more drawn to the general character idea and it seemed like it could have more depth to it.

I chose to build the profile first rather than what the character looks like. This process was a first for me usually i like to build what the character looks like rather than its background.
However this process proved more useful as while i was building the profile i could already picture what the character should look like.

Here is the profile i came up with and felt it gave various facets of the character which i think made Kai even more fascinating.

Name: Kai
Age: 26yrs old
Gender: Male
Height 185cm
Origin: Sydney Australia

Likes: Peanut butter and jam sandwiches, seafood, swimming and sleeping in
Dislikes: Loud noises, bad coffee and country music

Kai was originally human until he was infected by one of the sea creatures whilst trying to escape with his grandmother from Circular Quay.
Before the invasion, Kai worked at the fish markets as a dock worker which required waking up early and heavy lifting. He liked it there as he got to work with his older brother and eat all the seafood he wanted.
Kai is easily content by the simplest pleasures, such as eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich whilst digging his toes into the beach sand, one of kai’s favourite past times. However, his gentle disposition contradicts his physical appearance, due to his height and strong build, people usually avoid him and kids would run away scared. Kai likes to think of himself as a giant bear, fierce on the outside but soft on the inside.When the sea invasion had started, Kai rushed to Circular Quay to help his grandmother escape. Luckily enough his grandmother was able to escape, However Kai was able to fend off one of the sea creatures only to receive a minor scratch. A week later he himself turned into a sea/land creature, through sheer mental will he was able to overcome the madness that overwhelms most victims and regain his sanity and normal appetite instead of eating human flesh. Funnily enough Kai enjoys his new form and
new- found abilities, His senses are a lot sharper, stronger, and faster, in the water he is like a torpedo.
Where ever he can Kai tries to help the humans to escape the wrath of the sea creatures but at the end of the day Kai believes he has found his place amongst the sea creatures where he belongs.

Kai communicates through sound amongst his fellow sea creatures; the sound is similar to whales make.When he is angry his tentacles will shake, when Kai is sad the tentacles will drop down limp and close his eyes as he is a bit of a sook, and finally when he is happy his tentacles will turn upwards.