WIP: Rolling Hexapodal Sprint (Patreon)

My fixation on hexapod gaits continues. I liked the Bipod-B animation (second gif) a lot, but it didn't feel nearly fast enough for the top speed I was proposing for centaurs. Part of the issue is why it has that name. The legs in the gait act in pairs, with two feet generally on the ground at any given point in the cycle. Most of the fastest runs in the animal kingdom have single point contact, where one one foot is on the ground at a time. Which is certainly more complicated with six legs, but I gave it a shot here. 

I did some rough math for the animation in the first gif and she is traveling approximately 1.4 meters per frame at 24 fps (though I haven't drawn every frame yet), and thus 33.33 meters per second, thus 120 kph, thus 74.6 mph. She could get ticketed for speeding on the highway around here.

I'm pretty happy with the sketch and I think when I have more time I'll be trying to tweak it to eliminate some of the limb stretch and squash (a fine animation technique, but not desirable for what I want) and add detail. I'm calling it a rolling sprint because of how it appears to roll down the length of the body as the legs hit the ground in succession.