The other day, I was talking to this other animator about a series I made called "Chanter Tales," and I was telling the person how I felt that animating a character who is walking toward or away from the camera is the hardest thing you could possibly animate. Sure, there are quick and easy methods, like animating a loop of a person who is walking in place, as if he's on a treadmill, and then tweening it so that it grows in size. Also, that method can look very artificial if your background has lot of features. But sometimes, you want your character to stop, look around, and then continue walking. There are so many subtle things that you need to consider --like how the feet move when the person stops and how they rest.

I think that having characters walk toward and away from the screen is a very good thing to do in your movies, because it adds depth to your cartoon. Most people animate characters that walk onto the stage from the side, sort of like a side-scrolling video game, which gives the cartoon a very flat feel. There's nothing really wrong with that when you're making a very silly animation, but when you're shooting for realism, that depth is vital. I think that adding depth, simply by animating something mundane, like walking, also gives your cartoon a lot of credibility. By animating every day things, instead of having a battle consume the entire animation, I think you ground the cartoon in a bit of reality, and that makes it cool. Constant action makes it seem as if you're trying to make a character look cool. But flashiness isn't always as cool as reality. Real people who get things done are cooler than people who are trying to act cool. If you throw in something mundane here and there, I think the audience will watch it and subconsciously think, I'm looking at a character doing the real things that I do, in an environment that looks real. When something weird happens in a world that looks real, it's more shocking.

In the last Chanter Tales, I made my main character, Nuok, foraging for food, and I think that what that says to the audience is that, he's only human, he's in danger of starvation, not only that, but a mysterious magical being is trying to kill him. He's not invincible. He's actually has to worry about death. Something is at stake, and I think that's interesting.

Anyway, I was just thinking about that because I was working on one of those animations where Nuok is walking away from the screen, and it's a real pain in the butt. I keep having to pick up my shoes and hold them in front of the screen, because it's hard to draw a 2D foot that not only looks 3d, but that is also moving. At the same time, it's rewarding, because I often force myself to do things that are hard, and I'm getting better at it, and, in my opinion, it's looking pretty cool.