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Skateboarder Ed. Character by Warwick Hays. |
Now I don't know a lot about Warwick but, based on the design of the skateboard prop that comes with Skateboarder Ed I'm fairly certain Warwick doesn't know much about skateboarding, and/or probably didn't use a good reference when designing his skateboard.
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Bart's skateboard has changed over the years, though curiously, even later versions, barely get closer to what an actual skateboard looks like. |
Bart also has a very unique riding style and is somehow able to get a lot of air time without popping the skateboard's tail and keeping both of his feet mostly in the middle of the board.
This is what a modern 'trick' skateboard looks like:
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This is how I draw a skateboard typically used by street and skatepark skaters. |
Anyway... back to Warwick, and Skater Ed.
As a fun project I thought I'd see if I could animate Ed kickflipping his skateboard. The character comes with two versions of his skateboard, a 'riding' version, where you can see the top of the deck, and a 'carrying' version, that shows the underside of the deck.
Initially I thought I'd need to make more custom versions of Ed's skateboard to show it at different stages of rotation but, as it turned out, I was able to fake the different angles just by distorting and stretching the width of the board. Check out my completed, looping GIF animation below.
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Skateboarder Ed is just so consistent at kickflips he can do this all day. |
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Stills for just the flip part of the animation. Notice how Ed is 'popping' the tail and dragging his front foot up the deck in the third frame. Physics not magic! |
I also did quite a bit of hand sprite swapping and facial sprite swapping too.
I did forget to correct the layering on his ear - which is behind his head. It's not a big problem if you don't look too closely. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again next time.
Overall I'm very pleased with the final result and am looking forward to animating Ed doing other tricks, and perhaps giving him a bit of a skate crew with some other skateboarding characters I have in my Cartoon Animator library.
I'll forgive Warwick for Ed's inaccurately designed skateboard too. It does look kind of cool with the character, and you've gotta give Ed props for being able to kickflip such a challenging board shape.