Animating! ... crap.

[Atnas]

I would say the back leg needs smoother movement, and perhaps to lean a little when it first goes out and then ease back into the position.

But really great work slym, and good work in your critiques Phlakes and especially Chris. Chris, have a cookie! This is feature worthy material imo, something we haven't had in a long time, where the improvements were rapid and vast. When we get the newsbox up I'll see what I can do.

But it's not quite done yet! Add that secondary motion I talked about, the leg still chops in and out of that position.

[Juninho]

is good! Just think if you put more frames in the legs and more  movement of the rope arrow a little more when he shoots the arrow would improve.

[Joe]

This is looking really awesome.  I have two nitpicks though, one is when he draws the bow, you don't really get a sense of his muscles flexing, and the other is your timing.  The quick execution really downplays the power of the bow, and it ends up looking kind of like rubber.  Here's an edit to show you what I mean:



...And even still I think more force could be implied.

[Chris2balls]

You're right, Atnas. I gave it a go:

I changed the second and last but one frames, but I think it'll have to be done on at least two more frames to look okay.
I love cookies

Ah, Joe ninja'd me. I like what you've done for the muscle contraction!

[slym]

Here we go:

http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff440/t_redmer/animation_fire32.gif

Another edit: trying to give recoil to the shot.

[Chris2balls]

It's looking better. You still don't want to move the torso, do you? I did it sloppily in my edit but yeah, have a go.
I'd make the trembling and the shot faster, with a longer pause on the frame where he's just shot, to emphasize on power.

[slym]

What I'm worried about is that the pecks will move under his armpit. This is the most I can move his torso without doing that:


(I also sub-pixeled the hand a bit and made the straining less extreme)

Here's one of the frames where the torso was moved 1 pixel too far. (I moved it back to the correct place after), but as you can see the armpit somehow disappears.


Another edit... I noticed that a random dark spot appears under his arm.


(edit #38: added a slight bounce to the wood after release)

[Chris2balls]

The reason why you're having issues moving the torso is because you have to flatten the arm drawing the bow to give the impression that the back is being squashed as the arm is pulled backwards. At the same time, more is revealed of the other side of the torso. A good illustration of this, overdramatic as it may be, is Link's charged animation. A bit further in the vid you can see how he charges up. I think it could help!

[slym]

I tried to make it move a bit more:



edit: tried to make the belt movement less wonky:

[Chris2balls]

It doesn't look quite right yet, I think it could change shape slightly aswell as shifting as it currently is.
Ah, good idea to move the belt!

The arms aren't the same length, it looks rather funny now that I see it lol