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Topic: Animating minifigures with small legs

So for my current BRAWL entry idea, my brickfilm revolves around a small kid, and at the beginning and end he will be doing a fair bit of running (with a little bit of walking throughout). So my question is how does everybody else animate short legs? I know there are the custom ones (although as far as I know they are only sold at a fairly high quality by Brick Fortress, and I'm pretty sure he's based in America, which is a problem for me being based in Britain due to shipping fees etc.) but I was also curious how other people do it.

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Dragon Brick Studios's Website

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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

I've only animated short legs as a test so far, but the way I tried to do it was to have the minifig sort of hop over the studs with its arms swaying like in a normal walk cycle. I think it looks alright. https://youtu.be/9-Syfq2_d0Y?t=8s

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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

I mainly do hopping.  I only animated two children with short legs so far.  Fortunately, the first kid was supposed to be super-hyper, so it worked extremely well; she was a stud-hopper even when standing in place to talk!

Also, you can try gliding over the studs like a ghost.  I do this in this video.  Watch between 11:08 and 11:23.
https://vimeo.com/holdingourown/hoo3

Last edited by HoldingOurOwn (June 21, 2017 (03:57am))

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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

Thanks for the replies so far, they are ideas I had thought of but weren't sure how good they would look. However, seeing both of your examples, either of your techniques could perhaps work very well with what I was intending! I would still like to hear from lots of other people though, so please do share any other methods!

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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

My brother and I used this technique for such a situation a while back, but later we used this one. The second one might mainly work because it kinda looks like his dad is just dragging him along.

https://i.imgur.com/p1NNqfh.png
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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

Just buy the damn legs from Brick Fortress/ They're pretty cheap, and the shipping isn't THAT expensive. I live in the UK too, I bought some, and I'm a tightwad... Looks a whole lot better than hopping.

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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

twickabrick wrote:

The second one might mainly work because it kinda looks like his dad is just dragging him along.

The child will mostly be on his own but it would definitely be a viable option for another time, thanks mini/smile

jahnocli wrote:

Just buy the damn legs from Brick Fortress/ They're pretty cheap, and the shipping isn't THAT expensive. I live in the UK too, I bought some, and I'm a tightwad... Looks a whole lot better than hopping.

I was hesitant because I had no experience whatsoever with them in terms of reviews by people/shipping fees for those living outside the US etc. I'll look into it more mini/smile

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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

The hopping idea I personally like the most. I tried other methods early on when I started animating, but when I did hopping, I thought it looked much better especially if the character leans in and out like in this animation this looked good in my opinion for running:
https://youtu.be/yhL4l_vzj9I?t=23
Of course, this is not a short-leg character, but the concept is the same.
Because the main character in the Barney bunny series is a child, there are plenty of walk sequences to look at like this one: https://youtu.be/arUPVeT9MVU?t=28

Last edited by Raptor Studios (June 23, 2017 (06:06am))

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Re: Animating minifigures with small legs

Good suggestions everyone! My current idea has changed slightly (and it will probably stay as it is now) so I won't actually be using a main character with short legs (although, thinking about it, there may be some more minor characters who do, so it may be worth trying out some of these techniques). I think this will hopefully also be useful for others with the same question, and in fact, it might be a nice basis for an animation challenge mini/wink

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