AM AC Week 2 - sketches

These sketches I did over 2 days, for my class at Animation Mentor - Animals and Creatures Class 1.

My mentor Brian Mendenhall worked on Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. In class he went in depth on how the structure of a cat is and how we should understand where the body structure is under the fur.

I really went in depth on the differences between a lynx walk and tiger walk.

• Lynx like to move with their paws facing down all the time. I assume this is because of the terrain you find them in. Heavily wooded areas, with hills and lots of rocks. I assume that's also why they don't typically rotate their paws inward while walking, making sure their footing is alright before continuing forward.
• The Tiger likes to throw it's weight around.  They put all the pressure on the paw they they just land on. They also rotate their paws inward while walking, even the back feet slightly move inward when walking forward. Unlike the Lynx the Tiger has a large tail. I studied the differences between this tail and a Lion's tail. The differences between those are mainly how they pose the base of the tail that's at it's rear. The tiger likes to keep it slight up, while the Lion usually has it resting on it's rear.

After class I was inspired to really figure out the body structure of 3 cats I thought could pass off as the Animation Mentor Cat. Tiger, Lynx, and Lion. I drew a house cat's structure for kicks.  After figuring out those structures I applied what I thought could be the structure for the Animation Mentor Cat. I figured the front legs were more like a Lion, back legs more like a tiger, and the body structure (stoutness) of a Lynx.

This might be complicated while animating... but I'm up for the challenge.  For the most part I think I'll be looking at Tigers for reference because of how much they throw their weight around. You can see I also drew poses for the cat walk in detail too.  I'm going to start animating now that I understand all this.