Walk Cycle

Above is a walk cycle I drew last year for 2D animation module, I couldn’t quite get how the person walked right so I drew some quick stickmen to help me. The numbers refer to each frame and the L and R next to the hands and feet reminded me where each so be, so when the right (R) foot was forward the right hand would be back behind the man.

The first thing to remember about a walk cycle is that there are many different walk cycles and it all depends on the subject walking. Whether the person walking is old or young, male or female, fat or thin or even if it is an animal walking they will all be different in some way.
For example if the person is male they will have a more heavy walk, there head will go up and down as they take big strides, whereas a woman may often walk with the feet one in front of another causing there head to remain about the same level. An old person will walk slowly and may have there head leaned forward a small bit in contrast a young person will walk with there shoulders back and upright showing confidence. Looking at the differences in fat and thin walks, the fat person will be much slower with less steps as its hard to carry all the weight but a thin person doesn’t have the weight to carry so can move much faster with bigger strides.
So there are some differences and of course when you mix them and have say an old thin female its not as straight forward and have to change it to short slow strides or if you had a young fat female, the legs will no longer go one in front of the other and the leg movements will be short and slow. So the basic principles of putting one foot in front of the other are the same but the way it is done can be so much different.