My initial plan had been to draw Dahl standing up from her reclining position before walking seductively off screen, and I had looked at Richard Williams' Animator's Survival Kit for inspiration. This book pointed out fundamentals such as the fact that a seductive female walk cycle has more exaggeration, with the feet crossing in front of each other as though the character is walking along a straight line. There is also a detailed series of images featuring a Jessica Rabbit style character, which would provide an excellent frame of reference.
After careful consideration, however, I realised that I had never animated a human figure, let alone a complex walk cycle, and it might be more sensible to attempt something a little more simple. So, as an alternative, I chose to depict her rolling over into a more modest position, before fading away to demonstrate the emptiness of the advert.
Originally, I had intended to use the eyedropper tool in Photoshop and a graphics tablet to digitally paint over my hand drawn figure. But the eyedropper showed that Dahl's skin was pretty much white in the photo, which left little reason to paint over her body again. To accurately capture all the shade and variation in her hair would also have been a mammoth task digitally (as I have no prior experience working with a tablet), so to keep things simple I used watercolour, which has its own natural colour variation.
Having never animated a figure before, and considering that this was animated using the 'straight ahead' technique, without the structure and reference that I ideally would have liked (I was unable to persuade anyone to model for me), I am pleased with the result, and think that the manoeuvre is quite fluid and believable, and it has given me confidence to attempt more complex sequences in future.
Dat booty.
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