Knight Spider Climb

Above is my completed entry. It is a little rough in places but I'm proud of it.

Two more arms added, two more to go.

Progress so far- two arms down, four more to go. It will be challenging to have the other four with similar movement of the first two yet be posed differently so the silhouette looks dynamic but I will give it my best shot. Also, need to the bring the character and wall closed to the camera as there is a lot of empty space around the action. 

Been focused on refining the body and leg movement, hence the rest of the spider knight being hidden. The next task is to work on his many arms.

Started making progress with splining.

At this point, I have put a lot of working into the run/jump at the start of the animation and I'm happy with it for now. Next I want to focus on; refining the body then leg movement through the whole animation, and improving the timing on the slide down the wall. I also need to do some research for the "scramble" part and how to make it looks more cartoony/exaggerated. This "scramble" then needs to continue as the spider is sliding down to make it more clear that they're struggling to grip to the surface.   

Following my unhappiness with how the previous blocking was turning out, with the poses feeling stiff and timings not great, I decided to change my concept. I wanted to create something with more action in it to push me to make more dynamic poses and overall be be a project I'd be more excited to work on. 

Above is the new storyboard I created. I was first inspired by parkour and wanted the knight spider to do some wall climbing action (linking to the spider aspect of the character with how spiders can climb walls). Then, I subverted this by having them unable to grip to the wall and slide back down. 

Below are some references I collect for the key actions in the shot. 

Video sources: 

https://youtu.be/iZo1t0c__eU 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGU0ltWTWDo

Then I made the blocking for the shot, and hope to proceed from this point.

My entry (currently a work in progress) for the Knight Spider contest. My concept is to have the spider showing off with their sword, but it slips from their hand and they can't manage to get a hold of it again.

Below is the storyboard for my idea.

After the storyboard I tried out the rig, getting familiar with it before animating by making some poses.

Below is my first attempt at a block out for the animation. I'm quite happy with the body/leg movement, specifically in the jump, but there's still a lot to improve. The main things I want to focus on next are; improving the timings (perhaps making the jump earlier), making the interaction between the hands and the sword more obvious to the viewer, adding movement to the body at the start to make it feel more alive, and adding follow through to the arms during the jump so it looks more dynamic.