A simple walk cycle they said? ‘Never’, we replied.
What started as fervent conversations about animation and print in a half-deserted bar has blossomed into a deceivingly complex project between Julia Schimautz and Cult Wife‘s Ines Soutschka. The nebulous journey involved combining their skills in risograph print, design, colour theory and animation.
Initially inspired by photographer Sam Youkilis‘ simple walk cycles, the process began by finding an original persona to redraw and observe.
Both Julia and Ines live in areas filled with colourful people; pointing cameras anywhere and filming inevitably captured some weird and wonderful characters walking by. After selecting a final character, an automated animation walk-cycle seemed apt, using tools that software like Adobe After Effects might offer, instead of redrawing/rotoscoping the character frame by frame.
This was a conscious decision: it was important to contrast the organic, posterised risograph medium with clean source material.
The 18-second walk cycle was subsequently formatted into a four-colour print file, each colour on a separate layer, and sent to the risograph machine, which printed limited-edition A3 works in yellow, fluorescent pink, teal, and black.
The printed A3 was scanned back in and all 216 frames arranged and composed into the animation linked above. The limited-edition A3 print is also available for purchase on the Don’t Try Anything New online store for just R225 / $15, or by messaging our instagram account.
