I decided to use a straightforward concept: just a 12 frame walk cycle, which could be looped. I wanted to keep it fairly simple in order to be able to complete it and not make it too hard for myself, especially as this would be my first one. I mean the task is ambitious enough itself, without needing to complicate things further with an intricate design.
I had a load of footage of people walking left over from my ‘Bear’ project, so chose someone who didn’t have too much detail on their clothes and also so you couldn’t really see their face. I then made a walk cycle from the footage and rotoscoped the frames once I was happy with it. After that, I just treated them all as if they were separate embroidery pieces. I used a 6 inch hoop, as I didn’t want to be working too small or I’d have been at risk losing some detail. But I also didn’t want to make it too big, or each frame would have taken too long and any bigger wouldn’t have added anything anyway. I think the size I decided on was right for this project.
I wanted each clothing section to contrast with one another, so I used a mixture of stitches to add more texture. Plus if they were all the same, I think it might have looked quite odd. Which I obviously didn’t want! So I went with back stitch for the outline, satin for the trousers and long and short stitch for the hoody. I also used satin for the shoes, socks and skin, but in different directions than the trousers, to add further contrast.
As I alluded to in the previous paragraph, on the whole, I am happy with the outcome. And I am super proud of it. It’s by no means perfect, but I also kind of like that about it- I have created it by hand, so why not play to that? I always think if something is hand crafted it’s a little pointless if it’s too smooth, because then it might as well have been CG or something…
Regarding the hoop marks and any creases in the fabric, I used the ‘spot healing brush’ tool in Photoshop to paint them out. I tried it without any smoothing and the result didn’t look as good until I used this brush. Here’s a side by side of the ‘raw’ version (on the left), versus the smooth: