Attack Animation- Crits Please!

[uridicy]

This is the biggest character I've ever animated.  I also don't have a lot of experience animating, much less any sprites taller than 32 pixels, so I would definitely appreciate some critiques. Thanks. 

C&C
Newer

old:

[Wakka]

I love it. But the attack is too slow. And it's not fearsome. Also, wave your hand in front of your face. Try it. What do you see? Blur. Yes, that's right, blur. Now try to implement that onto your picture.

[Malor]

the animation is structually sound, but not ferocious enough. Make the slash faster, and maybe remove 1 frame. Also, the face could use some variation between frames.

[Dusty]

I think the over the head thing is a little boring, and awkward. I suggest doing a pull back and slash from the side, with a lot more speed as well. I think a pull back frame, and a frame with a white blur effect(forgot what they're called) will suffice.

[Helm]

If this is going to be for a game, think very hard if you want 5 frames of anticipation before the actual attack happens every time a player presses the slash button. There's a reason besides being bored to animate that a lot of platform games have very fast button-press attacks. They happen a lot. Unless timing for attacks is a major focus in your game, you're going to annoy players a lot that they have to wait so many tenths of a second before their attack happens every time they press the button.

If this isn't prince of persia, go with an FX slash like GENESIS game by Shiny, named 'Aladdin'.

[Syn]

I totally agree with Helm. Aesthetic aside, you need to think gameplay first. Usually action games go directly to the slash and then continue the animation to give a pause between attacks. Unless you want anticipating an attack to be part of a gameplay, I would suggest one "getting ready to attack" frame then go directly with the "attack" frame with some sfx to give the slash some weight. Then go with any follow through animation you want.

[chigsam]

right when the arm is over her face the very next frame looks like she hit herself

[9_6]

The tail moves weird and becomes thicker during the animation.
Also the shading o the right foot goes crazy.

[setz]

I threw that together really quickly, and its kind of shitty, but I guess it might help give you an idea of how to make the attack more lively and rapid. You'll want the attack to happen as fast as possible when the animation starts, as previously mentioned. The animation itself there seems to be some jumpiness to certain areas (the feet, tail) that youl'l want to smooth out.

The originall looks more like a love tap than anything dangerous, so I'd say "aww cute" and pet it

[digitaldust]

My biggest gripe with the attack anim is that her attack seems to be severely lacking in adequate range for her to drill some of them mummy booty without having the player worry about her gettin' too close to the enemies, in case you're going to implement the classic "touch me and you get pain" feature in almost all games of this caliber.

I also notice that the moving shoulder, thighs and pelvis are, like, almost stationary when she does the clawing while her upper torso juts forward, making the action really stiff and... Yeah, stiff. I recommend that you first push the upper torso forward, and then the frame or two after, the pelvis moves forward along the torso, while her left leg bends forward and her right leg move a bit parallel to her whole torso, and finally the shoulder moves forward just a bit more further than the upper torso, so then you'll get a more decent range on the attack. Don't push her legs too far, though... That is, unless you want her to do a lunging attack.

I hope my moonspeak helps.