Rats In Color

Some color for clarity...

Rat v. Trap

Thinking about some color for this one... now that's it's animated, the motivation for that is almost nil, but some color I think will make the cheese stand out a little better.
To make the action faster, I ended up cutting several drawings from the original (broke my heart after planning the poses) and the timing seems to be about right now.

Rats Are Cool

Just a quick idea for a rat eyeing a piece of cheese. Six, maybe seven seconds when it's through.
Animation of a rat batting a piece of cheese from a trap. Trap and cheese omitted for clarity. Work in Progress... some parts work, and others are kind of sticky. Rats are fun- they are easy to draw and classically smart. It's understandable why they make good cartoons.
Then there's the video (complete with timing issues)-

Pick Axe Drawings

Video of the drawings below. 24fps. The timing is off, it needs extremes and some inbetweens, but everything is there and it works. There are some things I would change for a character animation, but the spacing and mechanics for this movement are about where I think they should be, and there is plenty of room for overlap.

Sequential Drawing

These are lifedrawings with a model using a pick axe. (There are a few things you should never do naked- like exercise, use powertools, swing an axe...) Anyway, start at the back of your drawing pad, and work forward. I scanned mine in and spread them out. Terrific study in weight, and if you have enough control of your drawings, you can find some pretty good arcs too.