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  • Looking for advice on animating a dog tail wag

First off, let me say that I may be a little bit dog/puppy obsessed. I'll get that out of the way first.

I'm looking to figure out a good method for animating a tail wag. I have my character drawn from a side view with the tail straight out behind him to make bending easier. Similar to this:

The curling of the tail is easy - what I'm looking to achieve is that good, solid, side to side wag. Also, the tail I'm going to be animating is also pretty fluffy, like an adult golden retriever tail.

Any suggestions on how to do this? In the past I'd have gone for the frame to frame approach but I figure that, given that this is Spine, there has to be a better option.

Thanks in advance!

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First of all, I approve of your obsession. I'm sure Nate does too lol.
I also have a thing for golden retrievers lately, I had the pleasure to meet one on a ferry trip and spent half the day sketching him.

Regarding the side to side wag, it means the tail should give the illusion of being bent towards us, and then behind the tail.
This would probably mean having 3-4 pieces to replace, the straight tail, the base of the tail, the tip of the tail in front, the tip of the tail in the back (these two could be the same image), you could connect the two parts of the tail by turning them into meshes and having the same weights on the parts that should connect, and there are various bones configurations that allow you to do this.
Overall, a very interesting topic, makes me want to try and do it as well!

Will it be in the same style of the sheep?

It is in the same style as the sheep! But I am finalizing that so the design is a bit different. The animation in the new design should be a bit more powerful (less of a cotton ball, more of an actual animal, but still cartoony).

Golden retrievers are the best (IMO). I have two and they are absolute sweethearts. Lucky you for meeting one on a ferry. What a captive audience to sketch!

I like the idea of breaking the tail into 3 parts. I wonder though how to handle the curl of the tail as well. My current dog set up has the tail going straight out behind him. The tail can curl up (happy) or down between his legs (scared). I'm thinking that it would almost want to behave in a manner that is similar to how you can blend between IK and FK setups. Does that make sense? It could help with some of the foreshortening issues.

I'd love to see your approach for this. I smell a new stream topic in the making...

You're giving me great ideas lately, thanks XD
Besides, I've been holding myself back from rigging dogs for now, but I have been wanting to do them, I might prepare a skeleton that encloses various breeds together, I'm indecisive regarding their different sizes and builds though.

Regarding the curl, you can control it with two bones, but need to add slightly more vertices to have them bend smoothly. I have something in mind, but I wonder, do you have sketches of the bending? I might try to do that piece of rig, but we could have different visions on this, and I'm curious of yours.

Can't really tell if it makes sense without actually seeing the character, but what abut also scaling the tail bones while rotating them?

Here is a flat version of the character design with a copy of the isolated tail. The full template file has lots of options for the head, including various mouth shapes (smiling, scared, snarling) and eyebrows. I did the face as a mask so that the pupils can move behind it. There are also a collection of all of those options for a 3/4 profile.

Anyhow, this will give an idea of the type of tail I'm trying to animate. Does this help?