kehny's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Samurai motion test]

Ooookay.
First of, the whole movement is weird. He switches from righty to lefty right at the last instant for no aparent reason. It sure looks like you did your research, though.
I know samurais are supposed to be stiff, but some anticipations to certain movements would help, specially the down slash, otherwise his weapon would seem weightless.
Nice work on the rebound of the sword right at the last 4 frames or so.
You nailed it at the timing, if he didn't look like a samurai, people would still recognize him as one.
Flash has a feature called onion skin (I think), it helps you see a transparent fersion of the previous frames, just like in traditional work, look it up, that would help you avoid shifting in position and deformations on the character.
All and all, it's still pretty impressive for someone who has been using flash for a month, just keep up the good work, I think you've got what it takes to be an animator.

Hope I didn't sound too much of a hardass. Cheers!

SirKnightTheHero responds:

*the best medicine allways tastes bitter"
you are spot on. i also noticed the arms aparently phasing through eachother, but that was way after finishing the whole thing, and i didnt have time to finish it.
i DID have several extra frames in the movements before the slash, but something felt off... maybe it is at the 24 fps i used or something, but the truth is, i ended up removing all that. it was shaky-hexitant too much.
rebound - as in him retrieving the sword and adopting the defensive stance? (which by the way is more hollywoody than real-lify?)
i did this entirely using onion skin - it just so happens that when i started using the brush tool, i didnt know that if i made several thin lines together, it would form a perfect, thicker line, so when i wanted thick outlines, i had to be zoomed out a lot, which made me lose detail and got things a little shaky. the detail in the initial frames was way more elaborated because by then i had learned that zooming in allows me to do both thin and thick lines, allowing for way more detail and control.

oh, and thanks :D this is my 4th animation test. i have also made a walk cycle, a bird taking off, and a space rocket firing up. all in flash. i am so addicted to this, if only i had time to do more ;(

thanks a lot for the comment, it really helped ^^