I then looked at a National Geographic video of Gorillas. I looked at the primary parts of their movements. I also looked out for how they moved when they were happy or sad. Luckily Gorillas are similar to Humans and their emotions were obvious. I noticed that primarily their arms and hand moved. This was common regardless of if they were walking or sitting down. Their head were the biggest and most obvious thing that moved when they were happy or excited. Similarly their head moved if they were angry or sad because they would bare fangs or bow their heads in defeat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDxA8-01cp4
To show the movement of the arms, I decided to make the Gorillas animation 15 frames long. This was because it was nicer if the Gorilla moved one arm and then the other. This had to be done by moving the different legs on different frames but in a way that didn't look disjointed. I also moved the head from side to side and animated its eyebrows and nostrils. This was the best way to show face and head movements. The eye brows and nostrils allows me to communicate the emotion of the Gorilla. I made its eye brows move in a sad way, matching the expression in his eyes. However I decided to make the nostrils expand and contract to imitate them flaring. This is because I thought that a Gorilla would get aggressive if it felt threatened, more than the other animals. It would show tis aggression by flaring its nostrils, giving it an angrier look. Combined with the sadder eyes it made the Gorilla look lonely and made me feel like I wanted to save the animal.
Below are examples of the movement of the feet. The arms come up and drag up the feet, alternating movement. When looped as a cycle it looks like the Gorilla is stamping his feet on the ground. However the movement of the feet are not so great as to make the player feel that the Gorilla could just up and leave.
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