this is lovely...
One of things I always used to criticise 3d fighters for over and above 2d pixel based ones was the lack of character in the poses and action.
"but it's in THREED DEE" - Big deal...! sure they moved around with a certain realism but where's the facial characteristics? Where's the hand shapes? where's the secondary motion on hair and cloth and so on...
I used to loathe and detest V-fighter/Toshinden/Tekken/Soul Blade etc because of this - for failing to realise that the open palm, crunched fists, flared fingers added flavour to a move. That said, I think was Tekken 3 where Namco finally began having different hand shapes for some of the characters attacks... (that jackie chan hong kong cop character springs to mind) - but there was SFA and Marvel Super Heroes with the likes of Fei Long, Gei and Zangief, Hulk, Spiderman and Juggernaut with some fantastic finger gestures and facial characterristics that broght so much more dynamism to the screen than any lo poly 3d character ever could.
And so, to this work in this thread by Ben2 - illiustrating perfectly what I love so much about the pixel medium... that fact that we can adapt on a frame by frame basis to add character, dynamism, flair, impact and 'style' to a piece - where 3D used to fail so miserably...
... admitteddly all that's changed now - with the new machines being some much more powerful they can actually have articulated fingers and floating cloth and hair etc etc... but then it's come too late for this genre hasn't it...? the age of the 1 on 1 fighter seems to have had it's day...? it's all about multiple mass opponents and massive environments that only suck up the poly counts so all you're left with is characters that only just have the right digit assets to perform hand gestures and facial characteristics that only just get away with it... gun play gaming is so boring for the animator... nothing like a pair of swords and feet and fists.
How many more john woo a likes can there be?
Anyway... I've gone stratospherically off topic here...
Bottom line is I think these anims are wonderful... keep up the good work Ben.