Idle Animation

Finally, I created an idle animation, to play when the character is standing still. I wanted this animation be a bit of an homage to the old Sonic the Hedgehog games, where if the player went too long without inputting anything in the controller, Sonic would look directly at the camera and tap his foot impatiently. Sonic the Hedgehog games were one of the inspirations for my Thesis.

However, my character IS supposed to be the wizened old mentor in my game, so I toned it down a bit, in order to prevent him from coming across as too impatient. He patiently raps his fingers against his arm, rather than defiantly placing them on his hips, and every now and then he glances at the screen, but without the angry scowl that Sonic puts on when he's raring to go. First, I worked on getting the finger rapping down:

After that, I added a simple tapping animation to his boot, in time with his finger rapping; his boot raises in the same frame that he lifts all his fingers, and the boot returns to the ground on the same frame that his pinky taps against his arm. Then he does another boot tap without any finger rapping, then another in sync with the fingers again. Around this time he also blinks, and when he opens his eyes, he's looking at the camera. He does this for a bit before blinking and looking off into the distance again. The final result is below: