Animation Workshop Feedback - Christopher Smith #8 (2022)

All right, let's check this out here. It's pretty cool, I love all this. All right, and I saw this is the model. It's gonna be awesome. And this is all based on this kind of reference there. Side view, very cool. I like all this. So my comments will be... And this depends how long you want to linger in that pose. Anything like this, I would bring out that arm a little bit to have room to twist that hand so that the sword is flatter to camera. Basically, more like this. Gotta be careful when you are in transitional poses or breakdowns or anything, even held poses where the sword is flat like this to camera. It just kind of kills the heft of it. It makes it also very small. So this is the starting pose. You could be careful about that. I think throughout, it's not too bad, but that's all. Nice, you could probably go a bit lower there. And then throughout, like things like these, I would roll it out so you can see just a bit more. So it's just not so flat. This is all working on like passing poses like this. Again, I would lower it. It gives it also a bit of weight. It always kind of is lower than something like this. It makes it feel a bit too light. Careful about that. That's just for this. I think the action is cool. I love that he has this at the beginning where he goes, Cha! That's cool. This one, I think we can broadcast a bit clearer. This was a bit of a, I'm charging this and only at the end, I'm moving my shield. So I think when you go like this, it would be cool to almost bring that shield in while it rotates. It covers the face. Because you know, even on something like this, you almost end up kind of gravitating towards a face. So you wish there was a face. And imagine if he starts going forward it and the shield widens, rotate it so that it's only, it's a big shape change and color change. We're really focusing now on that shield. And then as it goes forward, then you get into what you have here. And then we really follow what you did there. It might also be interesting to go, instead of this, what is he doing? Like he's going back there. So maybe this has the shield all the way back there with a more twisted back to the camera. Head here, sword out here. Just kind of pushing some of the turns. You might have to twist over and rotate over the feet there until it goes twisty there. But something where we don't have too many, too many overlapping shapes. You got a head, you got the sword behind it, you got the shield behind it. And if we could over swing a bit more and then bring that shield down back there into that, might be cleaner. Even then the shield could be a bit lower so that we just have the cleanest silhouette. Even if it's slightly over the head will help. Because even this slash you can imagine could just be like this. So that the beginning, the sword could even be this high. The arm would be higher into something like this. And then you go, so you would have splined out one here, there, there, there type of stuff. So I would think in terms of arcs and sometimes cleaner silhouettes, like that's nice. And he rests there, which I don't mind going into that. And this one could also have something where it's like almost a swing and then straight in. And maybe it could be a cool moment of and the arm goes from this into like a middle pose, a sub pose type of thing, where we're swinging to draw attention to the sword again, into that pose. And in that way, it's a broader stab versus a swing that we're not quite finishing. This almost feels a bit too stifled, where like, wait, aren't we just swinging? Shouldn't it be lower? And then it's this, we have a tangent there, we have a tangent there, gets a bit uncomfortable shape-wise. And then it's not really a swing. Like, what is he doing? Why is he not swinging? Oh, it's a stab. So that's why I feel that could be interesting to a bit of a more like a flourish note to draw attention to this, hold it there, put it in like a full-on stab. That's cool. The only concern I have with this is again, overlapping shapes. You got leg, we got arm, we got sword. And this could be just, what if it also really broken wrist? You're gonna have to rotate that wrist back and curl the fingers a bit. Just gives us a bit of a more comfortable feel to it. I mean, I used to say, you can always push that block further away so you don't have to change too much animation-wise. Just kind of move that forward and move then the sword a bit more forward. So you could do something where the stab could be, if you keep something like this, maybe the stab is not here, but you go from this to this to this. It's somehow, it's just lower. And by it being lower, you can also, hold on, let me just take this drawings out. Imagine it's lower. Your line of action is gonna be also more like this. You have a more dynamic forward line versus this, that's almost straight. So that could help you. And the reason why I'm saying is that if this is lower, body is lower, then you have a bigger contrast going from low to high. Right? Bigger contrast to bring all this up and you avoid this. I know it gets a bit tricky with, well, if that sword is this low, I have to reach lower. How am I gonna bring that foot higher? I'm just trying to separate these. That's why I was thinking, well, what if the sword is lower? And that way we can see more of the foot. So maybe not. Maybe you're gonna have to put the sword higher. So then we have a cleaner separation between the leg and the arm. Or it could be somewhat in between lower, but then maybe it's the other leg. You can't because your leg is back there. That one's tricky. I mean, could be foot up here, crossing over into this. That could also be something. Gets better here. I'm just trying to separate this because here we're really losing the silhouette. That's all cool though. Push off. Again, it might be, that's really broken there with the wrist. Watch out once you get into that, but maybe you can do an interesting swingy. Not a nice clean arc because it's almost like, ah, but slightly out of control. I do like flourish with that at the end. So then the sword is high up here. Then it can go almost like one more little flourish down there, back into action. Like he's so confident that into this will be the end pose. The rest works. I would just not have to handle here where his butt is. That's because it's a tangent right there. So you can bring that arm further out, set the handle, whatever that's called. It is further away from his buttocks. And then we have that and maybe even separating the shields. I do like that it comes out there. All I would do is change the color between the background and the sword. So maybe the sword could be slightly brighter. I wouldn't brighten up the background because he has a nice silhouette. So maybe in a slightly different color on the sword a little bit brighter. Glowy all white maybe. Something like that. But that's kind of that. I think in broader terms. Again, the actions are cool. I like the little details. Strong poses. Especially this at the beginning is neat going into basically that idea of I'm starting and now let's go. Incorporating those kind of flourishes every now and then. Which potentially might be too like character-y and less straightforward mechanics. That's totally up to you. I just wanted to throw it out there. And yeah. As you do keep this in mind in terms of the silhouettes. You're going to have big shoulder pads. You have a crown. How that's going to work out unless you take it off and it's more like this. Maybe not like that. Just think about how the end silhouette's going to be. If he has this big cape. Whoa, I just hit full screen. If that big, you know, not cape but kind of around the legs. If that's going to be there. How that is going to affect the silhouette. So if you do something like this. Can you do that? Will that thing be able to stretch this far? It's going to cover all of this. What else is there in terms of silhouette and so on. So just as you make those notes as you apply those notes whatever you want to or whichever notes you want to apply. Totally up to you. Just think of what is the final character design and how is that going to potentially change or force you to change some of those poses. All right, thanks.