I'm putting together a base for a character that I want to animate but boy am I having trouble getting the walk right.
What is throwing me off so much? Something about this isn't clicking into place for me. I've been looking at so many references and I still can't seem to get the walk right after so many iterations. Help!
First off, don't worry about not getting a walk-animation right first go. It might be one of the most basic human functions, but it's also notoriously difficult to animate.
Thought a lot of good points have been made, I think you might also need to step back a bit and think of the basic principles of animation. I presume right now you draw a frame, then draw the next frame and so on? (The way the animation looks seems to suggest this.) Because if so, I'd recommend working with extremes and filling them with in-betweens later on. What you basically want to do is start with an animation with as little frames as possible; the most extreme positions needed to convey a walking motion. When you have those correct, add more frames to smooth it out. This way you start with an outline of the animation and have way more control over it.
For a walk animation, I'd start of with the contact position, where the legs are furthest apart and both feet touch the ground. Then move on to the passing position, where either the left leg passes the right or the other way around. Then you should have the most basic 4 frame walk animation. After that you can add the up and down positions, which fit in between the passing and contact positions. And as GDawgTheFab (who would definitely get my vote for username of the year if there was such an award) pointed out, head movement is vital, hence the 'up' and 'down' terms, where the head is at the highest or lowest point.
To make it all a bit clearer, here's an image from the fantastic 'Animator's Survival Kit':
There you can clearly see all the positions I described. So start of with the most extreme positions and add more frames to make the animation smoother as you go along.
Further, I'd like to suggest focussing on a completely side-view character while getting down the basics. A walk-animation is hard enough as it is and you're not doing yourself any favours by working in that difficult semi side view.
And finally, it might be a good idea to start of with the basic 4 frames I described (contact > pass > contact > pass), posting that here for feedback, and after you know you've got that right move on to adding more frames. The less frames you have, the easier it will be to make changes. And the better the basics are, the easier it will be to add good in-betweens.
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