Animation Application - Lazarus - 008

When starting to animate I grabbed a few references online so I can get a feel of the kind of shaky movement that happens when going fast in jets/cars etc. I found a good one which also has some good reference of the pilot turning around and looking behind him which is perfect reference for a later shot as well (6:08 in the ref footage).

Figure 1: Screenshot from Inside the F-35 Cockpit: Extreme Low-Level Valley Maneuvers (GoPro POV) (Aviation Wall, 2025)

I started animating the character, just keyframing every 2 to 3 frames and incrementing/decrementing as randomly as I possibly could. I would then use those keyframes as a kind of foundation for the other joints. For example if the right leg would go up a tiny bit then that would mean the arm could either go up with the leg and every other joint would follow, or the arm could go down as if the character is tucking in slightly from the shaking/g-forces. I think the first option would look a bit weird as if the character is really stiff.

I then copy + pasted the keyframes from one leg and transferred them over to the other side, the position of the leg wasn't right so I had to move the frames up a bit in the dope sheet. Although I mentioned making every joint act independently, I do want the legs to match as realistically the character would be pressing down with his legs to gain more control over his body in the ship which would mean the legs would both be moving simultaneously.

After doing all the legs and arms I detached part of the joystick and made it a child of left hand joint so it would stick to the hand and I wouldn't have to animate extra things then. The movement in the arms is very miniscule so the joystick doesn't move much from the base. before moving on to animating the head though, I wanted to spend a bit more time on the body as it looks a bit lifeless as it is.

I ended up animating a kind of finger roll, as if the pilots hand is tired or something and he's just stretching his fingers. I was able to use the same copy and paste technique I used for the legs but it was a little bit more difficult for the fingers as I had to mess around with the ease on the frames. I also added right after the finger a roll a kind of stretch were all the fingers stretch out at the same time instead of in an order.

After finishing that I started on animating the head, I didn't do much just added a load of micro movements and animated his head to look to the side/down and then back again. not much though only enough to just add something more to the scene and give it a bit more life again.

Reference's

Aviation Wall (2025) Inside the F-35 Cockpit: Extreme Low-Level Valley Maneuvers (GoPro POV). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rNBIgt_tSA (Accessed: 4 May 2026).