Here are some playblasts (unrendered Maya previews) from Animation Basics Week 3, which has been mostly about walk cycles. Meet Norman:

The first assignment was to create a “simple” generic walk cycle, just trying to get everything in place. This required a lot of “the hip bone’s connected to the back bone’s connected to the neck bone”-thinking, much more so than the things you can get away with in 2D. I worked three days with Norman…

We learned the importance of letting the character walk on the spot AND in space when creating a walk cycle. This way you can check things like that the feet have even spacing (so they don’t slide), and the way the movement of the character reads from different distances. I couldn’t resist giving Norman an expression.

The second assignment was to make a “character walk”, i.e. a walk cycle with some characteristics. I ended up with this goofy nerdy funky thing. Meet Basic Guy:

Basic Guy was more stretchy and cartoony than Norman. More suitable for this kind of walk I guess. Again, checking how the cycle reads in space.