Super Time Force Style Animation

[Rosier]

Only one this time, at least for now.


The idea is that he's creating a magic double using his soul, albeit to simply strike a pose.


I think I might be doing a bit better on timing with this one.

[Probo]

hate to lower the tone, but it looks a little unsavoury to me, a white monster sprouting from his crotch area as he thrusts his hips forward and splays his legs. maybe make his pose a little less suggestive?

[Conzeit]

I generally agree with probo

but also the general pose of the clone is a bit too weird and unrecognizable, at first I thought it was some kind of arching lightning that got stuck in that position for some reason. Even when you guess it's a character the pose is not very humanoid, someone hanging from their hips is just not likely to do that spiderlike pose, The shading style of the clone is also really weird and very unlike the original sprite OR STF, I wager if they made an energy being in STF he'd be more sillouethy and clear. The whole thing is a bit confusing, didnt strike me as a clone of himself at all.

so my advice for it, have the clone animate more, have him do a more complete take. have him go out, get to a more recognizably human pose, go a bit further than that and snap back, show him moving like a human being, not just sorta blur into the final pose. Also, tweak the energy clone to be more in-style and sillouethy

[grue]

For what it's worth, I didn't notice anything suggestive about it (and still don't). I've seen this exact pose in several different games, none of them adult.

Other than what's already been mentioned, his knees are flickering, especially the one on the left side, and his pocket is shifting up and down his leg. At least, I assume it's a pocket; I'm not quite sure what's going on with his pants. Is he wearing shorts over them?

Maybe try adding some movement to the hair as well, if it's not supposed to be soaked in hairspray.

[Rosier]

hate to lower the tone, but it looks a little unsavoury to me, a white monster sprouting from his crotch area as he thrusts his hips forward and splays his legs. maybe make his pose a little less suggestive?

The intention was it comes from his heart, as the animation has it come from the torso, not the crotch, though I see where the confusion comes from.

The pose itself is supposed to be somewhat like the infamous WRY attack from Jojo's Bizarre Adventures' Dio.

I generally agree with probo

but also the general pose of the clone is a bit too weird and unrecognizable, at first I thought it was some kind of arching lightning that got stuck in that position for some reason. Even when you guess it's a character the pose is not very humanoid, someone hanging from their hips is just not likely to do that spiderlike pose, The shading style of the clone is also really weird and very unlike the original sprite OR STF, I wager if they made an energy being in STF he'd be more sillouethy and clear. The whole thing is a bit confusing, didnt strike me as a clone of himself at all.

so my advice for it, have the clone animate more, have him do a more complete take. have him go out, get to a more recognizably human pose, go a bit further than that and snap back, show him moving like a human being, not just sorta blur into the final pose. Also, tweak the energy clone to be more in-style and sillouethy

The idea was that the larger being was kind of crawling out.  I had a GIF in mind that I was thinking of, but I couldn't find it, unfortunately.
Regardless, I'll take this into account.

For what it's worth, I didn't notice anything suggestive about it (and still don't). I've seen this exact pose in several different games, none of them adult.

Other than what's already been mentioned, his knees are flickering, especially the one on the left side, and his pocket is shifting up and down his leg. At least, I assume it's a pocket; I'm not quite sure what's going on with his pants. Is he wearing shorts over them?

Maybe try adding some movement to the hair as well, if it's not supposed to be soaked in hairspray.

It's supposed to be a stitch.  It'll probably be a good idea just to remove them, as they aren't readable at all.
As for the hair, I tried making him duck his head a bit, but the speed made it look pretty bad.  I'll try and make it fwoosh a it and see if it gets me anywhere.

[Gil]

The pose looks really boring compared to that reference. If you want it to look that crazy, you have to exaggerate a bunch more.

[NowvaB]

-Quick 4AM edit

Gil, and Conceit are right, it need to be exaggerated and finished.

but my edit brings up another problem. you are making it too smooth aka too many frames.
when you put that many frames in simple movement it becomes slower which is why I think you speed it up that fast.

by doing that you are taking away something very important to the overall impact of the animation.
In you reference dio's punches only has like 3 frames. the rest is fancy effects and screen shake.

Not surprised people found it vulgar. your using reference from jojo's...
Spoiler

[Rosier]

Axed a frame or two and added a small amount of blur to compensate.
Used actual STF colors from the game.
Made clone recognizable.
Played with shading a bit.

[Gil]

It needs to be waaaaaay more exaggerated. The guy looks like he spilled a drink on his shirt, not like something is bursting from his chest. The problem is the pose I think. Here's an exercise for you: try to replicate this Jojo animation exactly with your character:



Don't interpret it, replicate it exactly.

[Rosier]

Bit of a quick change, but that did work it for the better.

[Gil]

Main problem I see is that in the Jojo, the crotch is above the elbow. You have to push it even further. Most importantly, the original has a U-curve gesture line, very prominent. Yours has no gesture or rhythm yet.

There's tons and tons of info online about gesture drawing, you should have a look.

[Rosier]

Made him lean back a bit more, lowered the arms, raised the crotch and tried a bit for the curve.

[Gil]

The question here is: what makes that jojo pose so great and how can that influence your work? The essence of it is gesture, and I still feel like you haven't addressed this issue. Here's sort of what I mean?



That red line is all that matters in an animation sense and the difference is that one is dynamic (C-shapes are very powerful in suggesting motion) and one is just almost a straight line.

[Rosier]

So something more like this, assuming I'm understanding correctly?

[Gil]

That's a bit better yeah, but the torso is not curving like your line suggests. How good are your traditional drawing skills? I feel like your anatomy knowledge and gestural drawing could be better.

[yaomon17]

(Disclaimer on mistakes I made: didn't upscale from half size, used a previous version of the piece apart from the most recent though I think the point still applies)


I think you are definitely improving but I would take it a bit further when reaching for the pose. The large red outline is directly traced from the yellow pants man with limbs and all and the smaller outline on the right is downscaled from the large outline. I find this helpful in replicating the pose exactly as gil suggested. I also kept the BG from my edit since I find the hair a bit difficult to see on the forum BG.

[Rosier]

That's a bit better yeah, but the torso is not curving like your line suggests. How good are your traditional drawing skills? I feel like your anatomy knowledge and gestural drawing could be better.

I've spent infinitely more time spriting than hand drawing.  I don't really see returning to it either, unfortunately.
And yes, gestures are kind of a new territory.  Most of my sprites end up in a generic stand position.

(Disclaimer on mistakes I made: didn't upscale from half size, used a previous version of the piece apart from the most recent though I think the point still applies)


I think you are definitely improving but I would take it a bit further when reaching for the pose. The large red outline is directly traced from the yellow pants man with limbs and all and the smaller outline on the right is downscaled from the large outline. I find this helpful in replicating the pose exactly as gil suggested. I also kept the BG from my edit since I find the hair a bit difficult to see on the forum BG.

Using that reasoning, ended up with this. I feel pretty confident with it, even if the legs don't adhere 100% to the skeleton.

[Gil]

Yeah, that's getting pretty close to what you want

[Rosier]

Well if that's the case...

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Best version so far. If you are trying to replicate exact effect of twitching you should move some pixels in his legs to, and maybe choose different direction of movement for different parts like in reference. It will be a bit complicated thing to make at this size but I think that you should try.

This is nitpicking but strange thing here is that his limbs drastically change size during the animation. I know that this effect shouldn't be realistic and that it's usual thing in animations but it's a bit too much. Also that one pixel on his right foot makes him look like his sock is half way off and it's folded. You should remove that.

[Rosier]

Best version so far. If you are trying to replicate exact effect of twitching you should move some pixels in his legs to, and maybe choose different direction of movement for different parts like in reference. It will be a bit complicated thing to make at this size but I think that you should try.

This is nitpicking but strange thing here is that his limbs drastically change size during the animation. I know that this effect shouldn't be realistic and that it's usual thing in animations but it's a bit too much. Also that one pixel on his right foot makes him look like his sock is half way off and it's folded. You should remove that.

Tried a few different ways, but the legs are too small to have any decent shake.

Otherwise, made him a bit taller in his stand frames, changed the ghost's arms to the same pose as the character, and also added more STF style shading of separating sides.

[Gil]

Part of the problem is probably that anatomically speaking, all your characters have extremely short legs. It works as a stylistic thing, but there's a problem when you move to animation.

[Rosier]

Another part's probably that they're just too small in general.  The one above is twice the size of what it should be because of ease of visibility.  Minor movements like the pants shaking just don't work, as the motions become way too dramatic.


I'll eventually work on some bigger and different styles, but STF doesn't lend itself well to that kind of motion.

[Echo-07]

Hey Rosier,

I like seeing this animation coming along and developing, I especially like the body twitch that you added, it makes it feel like the spirit is bursting out of him.
 
At no point did I think that the spirit was coming out of his crotch, it was always clear to me that it came out of his chest.

I think this latest version is working well but I agree with Harvey, the legs increase in size and the right leg looks like its sliding to the side more than bending at the knee as his torso jerks back from the spirit bursting out. I think your reference is good but I personally think that jojo pose is too extreme and just makes him look like he is sticking his crotch out. A more subtle version of it would work much better and I think you're real close to that. Just defining the bent knee of the right leg and pulling it a bit will work.

One last suggestion, have you considered having the character throw his head back as the spirit bursts out? I think it would fit well with the twitching and accentuate the fact that something is (painfully?) bursting out of him.

Good work bud 

[Rosier]

Unfortunately, the legs thing is a bit unavoidable just in regards to how the style works out.  The latest one has him as tall as possible without getting into slenderman proportions.

As for the pose, I went for subtle to begin with and everyone told me to ramp it up.

The bursting out isn't supposed to be painful at all.  It's a power up straight from his soul, so that's why he's pretty nonchalant about his head movement, plus the Jojo pose didn't pull back at all.

[Conzeit]

original guy looks ok to me now, the clone guy looks a lot clearer now. The one thing that still bugs me is that the way you motion blurred the clone's arms sorta make them look a bit like tentacles. You have the arm settle in the final position first and then the forearms and hand follow behind, that's what things move like when they're limp and the motion originates from the base of the limb, that works for tentacles, scarfs and tails but it looks weird on a humanoid's arms.


Other than that nothing bugs me, I could suggest things to make it more interesting like maybe making the clone's pose less like the original, maybe his arms should project upwards a bit more or something. maybe you should have his motions also sync up more with the original as if he was being puppeteered by the other guy (not literally puppeteered, just maybe more like when DBZ characters are using gestures to change the direction of an energy ball, or when naruto guys use jutsu shit to move things from a distance...if they do that, dont really know :p)

[NowvaB]

If it isn't supposed to hurt, then maybe some reference from DBZ... oh, Conceit beat me there.
Well then if my memory serves me right Shaman King might have some soul related stuff to look at.

To provide the feeling that it is coming out of his soul you might need not effects to help portray that.

I would be nice if it was extended though or explained whats happening. b/c I'm not really sure where your trying to take it. The spirit kinda pops in and out.
is it like some double dragon spirit that pops out, or more like a clone that comes out and fights for you?

[Rosier]

@conceit
I don't have my pc at the moment, so I'll try messing around with the arms when I can.  I'm also trying to visualize how to maybe make it sync up a bit more, like having him throw his arms up to match the spirit. 

@NowvaB
Without getting into too much backstory, it's based on the concept of a thought form, or Tulpa.  Basically, it's a second body that shares a mind with the person and can be projected as a separate entity, allowing one body to accomplish one task and the other to do a separate one from a distance.  In the animation, he's summoning just the upper part for no other reason than to strike a pose before recalling it because that was the goal of the animation.

[Rosier]

Synced up the arms of both of them, plus got rid of the blur.