Chicken Walk - Animating a Realistic Chicken

Animating a realistic chicken isn´t an easy task.
Took quite a while to figure out the way this specific bird moves, helpfully as it is a domestic animal, I could get loads of references to study.

Unusual situations for a chicken

I was responsible to create the "feel" of the shots and the walk of the chicken and got the opportunity at Vetor Zero to create the Animatic also - So, for 2 weeks I was only thinking about chickens. Saw loads of references and documentaries to the point where I could understand visually the dos and don´ts of a chicken moving realistic. This it was crucial as I was assigned to 4 shots where the chicken was in an unusual situations for a bird and also talking to the camera.


I started the chicken walk animating the feet, and making it sure it was solid.
After that I jumped to the body, creating some flow that matches the up and downs of a bird, not a hard task also.
As I animated birds feet "a lot" on HAPPY FEET 2 I have done this initially task quite fast, but when I started to work on the neck/head I had to come back to the references and figure out a way to understand how it works.

The neck/head of some type of bird they work in a different pace of the body, looking like it belongs to a different body. It is a very fast/snappy flow - when a chicken is walking, the head barely moves, stay most of the time stationery as the body progresses, then it catches up the body after. It seems watching that the head is always in alert mode as the body moves in a different flow.


Chicken Walk Cycle from Dancellos on Vimeo.


Bellow the collection of my shots and the TVC´s, hope you all like it :)



Bachoco TVC - Daniel Vasconcellos Shots from Dancellos on Vimeo.


Bachoco - Alimentando de Verdad from Vetor Zero on Vimeo.


Bachoco TVC
:
Project Coordinator: Mauricio Lobel
Animation Coordinator: Marcio Nicolosi
Animation Supervisor: Daniel Alvite
Riggers: Viviane Adade e Flávio Castelo