Girl with a gun - Shooting Animation [WIP][C+C]

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Hi guys, it's me again. I need your opinion on this work.
It's still WIP, but I'm not very satisfied with her face. Any idea how to make it more "womanly"? Also any advice about posture and shading is very appreciated. 



Last version:

[Kcilc]

Well, I started messing with her head, and then decided to keep going on with my edit, and I moved pretty far away from what I think your intentions are, but I hope you can still apply some of my information.



First, there is too much noisy detail that doesn't contribute to the whole picture. The hair, for example, doesn't have a very hairlike appearance—not because you didn't use a hair texture, but because it just gets lost in such a small space. It's more important to hint at textures instead of actually create them at this size. Let the volumes get the most attention.

Second, I'm not sure what sort of character you're going for, but to me, it looks like a ditsy corporate girl freaked out by the robber that just burst through the office door. She happens to have a gun that she hasn't even fired since she bought it, and will most surely miss if she fired. Personally, I like to draw girls that know how to defend themselves and always dress in something she can move in no matter how small the chances of a robber showing up are. That's the direction my edit took, so I apologize if the stance I chose doesn't really fit the style. However! There are a couple things that stood out to me that lead me to change the pose. One of them was that her torso looks oddly large compared to her legs, another was how she's a little off balance. Those two things aggravate each other. I adjusted those slightly, and got myself a little bit carried away by the end as you can tell. making her legs and hips a little bigger to even out her form, then shifting her top half to the left a pixel or two should be all you need to do to make the pose you have work.

As for the womanliness of her face, try to trim her jaw down a little bit, and find a hairstyle that's more feminine. Yours looks little bit like a bowl cut right now. If you were going for a bob, I'd say make it just a pixel longer, deepen the shadows around her face, and really emphasize where her part is.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

@Kcilc Thank you so much for your edit and constructive criticism. 

I agree about hair, your solution is way better. I've tried to incorporate it in my edit.

She is a character from horror game. She's teenage girl that never fired gun before, and she must use it to survive.

This was created as sidescroller sprite, and I don't see how she's out of balance. She is leaned back, her left leg support that position, and right leg gives her balance. I was going for almost 3/4 view.

Here is an update. I think that is much better now.


I'm still having trouble with her right hand, and I'm not sure about shadow that her arm is casting on torso (is it on the right spot, and should it be more darker?).

[cels]

For what it's worth, I think Kcilc has drawn a much better and more correct stance for firing a pistol. But Harvey's version is probably more appropriate for this kind of character. The normal mistake when firing a pistol is not have a good stance or good grip that absorbs the recoil. In Harvey's version, it looks like she's almost trying to lean away from the pistol, which is what you would expect a teenage girl to do.

I see where Kcilc is coming from, I have a thing for girls who can defend themselves. But I also love the female protagonist who doesn't know how to fight / shoot, but finds a way to survive anyway, through sheer willpower. Like Alabama (Patricia Arquette) in True Romance. Now, if you make a character with this sort of helpless appearance, and give her the aim of Wyatt Earp, then it would make no sense.

At the moment, I think her exaggerated curves (huge breasts, tiny waist) are a bit at odds with a more realistic looking face ( and an overall semi-realistic style. I like what Kcilc did with the skirt. I don't think it needs a huge split, but a bit of loose fabric gives her more freedom of motion and also lets you do those nice fabric highlights which help to convey movement and create dramatic-looking poses.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

@cels thank you for your comment, I agree that Kcilc pose is very good but it's for more trained shooter.

I exaggerated her hips and breasts on purpose, I'm aiming for specific style.
That's a miniskirt, and it shouldn't have split. I'll see how it will all going when i animate her walk, but I think that skirt won't be a problem. 

[Mathias]

I thought the same - Harvey's pose looks more feminine and like she's not sure what she's doing, or even scared to fire the pistol.
Kcilc's pose, which is very well drawn, does look like a more experienced firearm handler.

Which pose fits better depends on the nature of the character.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Early WIP shooting animation. Every comment is very appreciated. 

[NaCl]

Cool animation! It does lots of things well, I think you have a good eye for animation. One thing I think might help you though, is the way you time each frame. Right now, many frames have different timings. This might seem good at first, but it really makes things way more complicated and difficult. With a regular frame timing, each frame represents a certain amount of time, and more importantly each unit of space represents a certain amount of movement between frames. For instance, if you have a single pixel moving one pixel every frame, a regular frame timing would give you regular movement. If the frames all had different timings, making that pixel move at a steady pace would be very difficult. With animation, everything involves the change in position between frames. So with an irregular frame timing, you need to account for both the amount of movement and the amount of time represented by that frame. Very very tricky.

I can see you are trying to make quick things happen quickly by reducing the frame time. But there are better ways to represent the speed of an action. Remember that the distance an object moves between frames corresponds to it's speed. For the gun recoil, it is meant to move quickly up and then slow down as she gets control of it. The motion blur you use for the gun, is actually a product of film. In film, each frame represents some unit of time (same as in animation). If the shutter speed is too slow, all movement occurring within that frame time will be captured (making a blur). That's why a motion blur makes things look quick, it represents to the eye a lot of motion in a short amount of time.



In the edit, I did a few very simple things. I made the frame timings regular. Then, I combined the muzzle flash frame (too quick to be represented by its own frame) with the first recoil frame. Finally, I increased the amount of recoil experienced and the response to it. The edit is still flawed. It seems to "catch" a bit before the recoil. This is because the muzzle flash frame has a small amount of change in position from the last frame. The frame after moves a lot more. Anyway, hope it helps a little bit.

Keep up the good work, I like what I'm seeing overall.

[Coltrane]

Very interesting post, NaCl.
I was wondering, if you make all the frames have the same timing, is duplication a good thing to try ? Then you'll have the possibility to have a regular movement if you want to but it also offers the possibility to double the time of a frame if it seems to make the animation look better.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

@NaCl Thank you for your comment and very useful and thorough explanation. I agree, it looks better now. I'll try to make all frame timings the same, I wasn't thinking about that.

This was my first version of animation (created in amount of time that I had last night), and after I posted it, I saw that I need to add couple more frames at the end (after recoil) to make everything smooth, and maybe add gun shell ejection after a shot.

Also in one very short frame during the shot I made top of the gun slide back, but it's barely visible mainly because the next frame is a blur frame. I should fix that to.