CrocWarrior Attack Feedback

william

Hi, I'm doing some animations to practice and I need some feedback.

For this one my idea was to make him create a fireball with his right hand, throw it in the air and hit it with his tail to attack an enemy but I feel like there is something not working right and  I can`t figure out what, specially with the hand holding the sword.

Thank you in advance.

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/b19db46f9ba2/

tholmes3d

This is really cool. For me the issue is clarity of posing. Your poses are really nice individually, but when I watched it the first time I couldn't tell if he hit the ball with his tail, his sword, or maybe even his arm. I think this is because there's some strobing between different body parts. His tail hits the ball, then is gone on the next frame, and then the sword is right where the tail was.  The other thing is that he is almost all the way facing forward when he hits the ball with his tail. Only once I watched it in slow motion did I realize his tail was long enough to wrap all the way around his body like that. I just didn't intuitively think the tail would be that long, so you may have to work within what people expect, even if the rig can go further. Maybe having him not so far into the spin when he hits will fix it?
Other than the clarity that you're trying to work out that animation is really well done so I'll trust you to figure it out, but let me know if you need any clarification. And please post when you've fixed it, I'd love to see what worked.

william

Hi, here are the notes I got and how I tried to fix them

1- Clarity when hitting the ball

I kept the sword and right hand away from the ball when the tail hits it. Also didnt turn his body as much at that moment.

2- Tail length

The tail isn't actually long enough to be completely wraped around his body, the first time I forced it a lot because I thought it would feel like he was gathering more energy before the impact. 

This time I didnt force it and tried to make the tail follow a cleaner trajectory.

3- Jump and spin too fast

I slowed down both the jump and the spin a bit, as well as giving the anticipation before the jump a few more frames

4. Sudden arm swing when landing

I changed the way the arm holding the sword moves

5. Watch his target when he lands

I tried to keep the head looking to the right when he lands but it felt really forced because the body is facing the front when he lands and I'm trying to make his head move following the momentum of the jump so I ended up leaving it as it was. Any tips on how to do it? 

And here are some questions I have now

1. Does it feel impactul enough?

2. Is it still too fast?

3. The jump between frames 42-46 looks a bit weird but I'm not sure how to do it better

4. Is there a simple way to make the ball look more like it's on fire? Or maybe add some kind of effect when it gets hit? I've never done any effects related thing so i'm not sure where to start. I tried following some youtube tutorials about particles but it ended up not looking good

Here's the animation link : https://syncsketch.com/sketch/b19db46f9ba2/