Fighter guy anim, first draft (just a block figure)

[Tsugumo]

I don't even know if I'll get around to doing more with this, my CPU at home is pretty shitty for doing art so I stayed late at work for like 2 hours to make this, heh:



Just getting the motion down for him...in an ideal world where I have time to do this step I find it saves a lot of frustration later.  If the block figure looks good, odds are the rest will.  I was watching an anim with SF3 sprites so I threw in more frames than I normally would and gave the guy some cloth and baggy pants to flop around.  On the actual kick frame I'm shooting for having his leg bigger/longer/stretched a bit and if I do this up that's going to be motion blurred with color...SF3 does this (at least the stretchy limb part) and it looks sweet so I tried messing with it.

Nothing exciting, critique if you like, I'm just throwin' it up to convince myself to do SOMETHING in my spare time, haha  I don't do much personal stuff these days.

- Tsugumo

[templargfx]

Very "another world" I like it. nice fluid motion. finish it!

[AlexHW]

nice, it took me a while to realize he is spinning(first thought he was sidekicking), but after I figured that out it made sense.
I think the initial hop could use some clarifying near the legs as its hard to read them useing just one tone.
looks smooth though
nice to see some work from you again

[Tsugumo]

it took me a while to realize he is spinning(first thought he was sidekicking)

haha I actually did that too when I got home just now...looked at it and was like "wtf??"  but it works in my head, I just colored his arm 'cause I couldn't keep track of it (I started with him all one color, then did the arm after, then the cloth after that), but I know how the legs are moving so I didn't mark them different colors.  Ideally I'd take this, size it to whatever size I'm going to animate in, retrace all the frames using actual line-art, then retrace that clean version pixelized and do it up.

I'm happy with the motion 'cause I don't normally do this many frames but there's something with his leg when he kicks I'm not digging and I can't tell what it is...it's when he pulls his leg in, the shape is doing something weird.  bleh, I'm too tired to figure it out now, heh...

hoping to do this guy up 96-ish high Capcom style but I'm scared of how many frames it is, haha

- Tsugumo

[Helm]

It has a very good release frame. I feel perhaps the anticipation frames are illsuited for the attack that follows, though. They seem to be anticipation for jumping up, not a front kick. Though it's interesting visually, I wouldn't say it's a very rational start to the animation. I'd instead make him lean a bit back and then kick, if you have to have anticipation in this animation.

I personally wouldn't have any at all though, since martial arts kicks are supposed to be snappy, not 'here it comes, block me!'

[big brother]

Will you scale this up before you put the color and details down?

[AdamAtomic]

sweet!  I agree that the initial frames seem slightly out of place, though cool-looking.  My main concern would be a gameplay issue.  Not so much "here it comes, block me!" but "man i'm gonna kick you eventually so punch me in the face right now".  Great motion though, fluid and clean!

[Feron]

I agree with helm.  Whilst the actual impact frames are good, however when i first watched it - the arms made me think he was jumping.  I suggest pulling the arms in with bent elbows closer to his chest will also help the emphasis of the weight of the torso acting on the kick.  At the moment his arms are flailing in all directions and would make him a bit unbalanced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4fwpm1G_fE

[mangust]

Very good animation, but for this form kick i think must be faster and jump. I some edit you animation and remove some frames.

[Rox]

Ohh my goodness. I just opened all the unread threads in tabs like I always do... and this sweet animation shows up from nowhere. I read the title, then gaze at it for a while. A few minutes, actually. Around three or four. Then I read the post, spot the signature, and finally realize who the hell made it.

Welcome back, honored warrior of the pixels! We've missed you. Well, I have, at least. With Tsu and Bruce all back again (again (again?)), I even imagine my mind painting the forum a gentle tone of blue... Ahh, nostalgia.

Anyhow, really nice animation. Powerful and otherwordly, as templargfx put it. Say, have you ever seen Otogi (or Otogi 2) for the Xbox? This animation reminded me of parts of that game. It's got some really nice attack animations with dramatic, Japanese timing, such as extremely powerful sword swings that just stop suddenly once they reach a certain point - exactly like his forward motion. I love that! Actually, I think I should study the animation in that game some more and see if I can apply it to traditional animation sometime...

I do disagree with the people who think it looks like he'd jump. The entire animation - the whole concept actually - is stylishly exaggerated. It makes perfect sense to me that one would crouch down like that if the following attack would be powerful enough to make one's entire body slide forward several feet. A jump would make it look more like something from, say... one of them old Karate games for the C64/Amiga/NES. And I really like the exaggerated otherworldlyness, so please don't do that!