Chibi punch animation critique

[23yrold3yrold]

Okay, so fairly long time lurker, first time poster. I'm making my first (serious) foray into sprite animation and I've been starting with this.

I'm making a Tetris Attack clone which incorporates some Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo aesthetics. This is mostly in the form of sprite fighters based on my friends. Most of the animations aren't too ambitious but a few have been challenging, and now that I've taken what I feel is my best stab, I'm looking for outside ideas on where to improve. Right now I'm hand-drawing the sprites, scanning, and tracing in ProMotion ....



I don't know how to make ProMotion alpha out the pink, sorry. 

I'm doing a couple of things like restricting myself to 16 colours just for fun (I may go for "unlimited" later), but mainly I'm worried about the fluidity of the animation. Think it looks decent? Should I delay it somewhere I'm not or not where I am? Maybe the drawing itself is off? I'll take anything .... thanks for comments.

[EvilEye]

LOL I like it.

In regard to the animation:

His right foot starts pointing too far outward. It should start pointing toward us and slightly toward his left foot. That way the pivot won't look so ridiculous.

He's punching with his finger joints, you want to punch with your knuckles.

[Fatalis67]

I like this alot. But maybe you should slow it down a bit. It seems too fast for me right now.

[Helm]

This isn't critique, just a slight adjustment so people can see what you did and help. I think it's pretty amazing, but I'm not a huge great animator guy but others are here and they'll help you.

[Jiisuki]

I agree with EvilEye on this particularly

He's punching with his finger joints, you want to punch with your knuckles.

It also gives the impression that he's not folding his hand good enough. A punch like that will hurt alot to the hand
I don't know if this is just me with bad eyes, but is the thumb inside or outside the folded hand?
If inside, a hard punch would definetly break the thumb :/ Perhaps I just think it looks like that because of the hit isn't with the knuckes but with the joints?

Otherwise I think it's really cool and fluid!

[Helm]

Besides the mentioned joint versus knuckle thing, I think a punch like this is best delt as if it's a tsuki (karate punch) which starts with the hand in reverse in chamber close to the chest and as it's extended it turns around and reaches impact with the second knuckle on the hand.

[Souly]

Just nitpick edits here and there.
Thought the fist got way too large, I know it's supposed to get large...
Also added a retract shrink on the fist as it comes back.
Added shading on his right temple.

[Salvage]

this is fun.
looks like you learned some good stuff while lurking
one thing, his left hand seems to be continuously patting his tummy.
strangely, it makes it seem as if he is punching out of hunger or something
just kind of an odd, passive gesture for someone who is raging about like a mofo.

[Ben2theEdge]

Just nitpick edits here and there.
Thought the fist got way too large, I know it's supposed to get large...
Also added a retract shrink on the fist as it comes back.

Yeah... I was studying the Street Fighter 3 animations and they really like to use this kind of jerk-back, huge fist effect, especially for Chun Li. It's really fun but it's also incredibly finnicky. I tried something similar a while ago but it's pretty subtle:


I ended up adding a 3rd frame so at the peak of the punch he goes all the way forward, jerks back, and jerks slightly forward again.
I think part of it too is that the "small" fist and the "big" fist should both extend about the same distance, it makes the effect slightly more subtle but still noticeable.

[23yrold3yrold]

Okay, I'm back. Thanks for the comments.

I slowed it down a bit; I guess I got used to the speed and it started looking natural. So did my original sketch with the finger joint sticking out; I'm flattening that out now. The shading by the temple looks nice, but I really like the arm; you added some shading for muscle texture there? That's hot; I gotta break out my anatomy book and get some of that detail in there.

I'll post a "finished" animation soon; I'll probably be back later with something more elaborate. I don't like this animation because a lot of it boils down to shifting pixels left and right, but I guess we all start somewhere .... thanks again.