Rounding the corner

Since those earlier experiments with 3D printing, my collaborators and I here at the Banff Centre have been working to make my little animated guy walk in the real world. As a test, we’ve printed him out in each of the twelve positions of a complete walk cycle:



This isn’t the final result, it’s just a proof of concept to see whether things are going to work out. In this run, we printed each pose as a separate object. This allowed us to quickly get a sense of what we were going to end up with.

Because he generally has one foot raised in the air, each piece won’t stand up on its own. So to get a sense of what the finished zoetrope might look like, I propped up each raised foot with crumpled double-sticky transparent tape, as you can see in this close-up:



In the production version the entire zoetrope will be printed in one connected piece, so each pose of the guy will be in exactly the right position. The final run is printing now — I can hear the machine working away as I type this.

We are all very excited — it looks like we’re finally rounding the corner. With any luck, I can show you an animation by Thursday!

5 thoughts on “Rounding the corner”

  1. Wow great, can’t wait!! He looks like he is already coming to life.

    Does ‘he’ have a name? Is he based on a real character in your story? (and very minor detail, what is with the pot belly? 🙂

  2. Very cool. Looks like a great opportunity for stop motion video. I think with all that walking he would have lost the pot belly; unless he’s bar hopping.

  3. I’ve been trying to figure out what his name is. I know it’s there — I just need to wait for it.

    The pot belly is his motivation (all characters need motivation). He walks to work off the pot belly.

  4. On the top picture, the figure that’s facing away, he looks so lean and fit because the pot belly is hidden. Maybe he prefers to stay on the ‘good’ side of his silhouette. I know because I was exactly like that when I was pregnant and HUGE, but from a certain angle you couldn’t see at all; I can relate 🙂 Are the hands moving too while he walks?

  5. You’ll just have to wait till tomorrow to see what the animation looks like. 🙂

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