A short fight scene

A quick fight scene exercise I did using toon boom studio.

http://youtu.be/2jZAhsuAL_k

I do not know the software very well, nor do I do any of this professionally, so any critique I give is coming straight outta me as*… but I can say I like it. I think there might be a sound glitch though when the back character punches the front character, instead of a punch sound I hear a gunshot. if the gunshot is deliberate, there needs to be some kind of visual indication that it’s the gun firing. The crumpled form of the front character at the end looks good, although I’m wondering if they’d truly remain like that in reality. The spine is fairly rigid, and unless that dudes kick completely severed his spine, I doubt it’d remain in the crumpled up shape.

I appreciate the critique! The gunshot at the beginning was deliberate. Now that you mention it, I do agree that a visual indication is necessary.
The crumpled form at the end is supposed to show that his spine is completely mangled and destroyed. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the view and criticism. Cheers!

Perhaps a sound effect of a craa-aa-aack? or one of those Manga specials of the sound effects being spelled out on the screen to show the spine was mangled? There should be something that lets the viewer know why the crumpled form at the end, in whatever fashion or style you want (the Manga approach was just to demonstrate what I meant, not saying that’s what you should use)…

hmmm… I did put in a cracking sound effect… Maybe it’s not loud enough? I had to record the cracking myself, so perhaps it’s a little too quiet…

Oh I see… I’ve been listening to it with headphones on. The sfx gets lost through the speakers… (same thing for the punch)

Once again, thanks for the helpful critique!

Your stuff totally rocks, great timing and really dynamic animation.

Thank you! I really appreciate that. :smiley:

Absolutely, I would have to disagree about the spine crumbling at the end being a problem, leave it as is. It makes the scene and compliments the power of the kick. This is animation, read any of the writings of Williams and Goldberg and the old time Disney artists, they say the same thing, push it beyond what a human is capable of doing, what matters is the effect it has on the audience. That crumpled body at the end makes your animation stand out from the rest.

I agree that the crumpled form is fine as is, but there really should be some pre-cursor, some indication within the kick that shows it’s as powerful as it is, that it did indeed mangle the spine. If you re-watch the fight scene, there is nothing that really signifies that as a tremendously powerful kick. It looks like just a regular kind of kick, nothing significantly powerful about it, hence the crumpled form at the end is at odds with it.

I suppose an argument can be made for both sides. Crumpled makes sense or doesn’t make sense. With this exercise, I was intentionally trying to add a bit of an extra subconscious “oomf” (I feel maybe sfx tweaking maybe the key here?). As I said in the description of it, I was trying something a little different. An experiment of what and how much I can get away with.
I really do appreciate this feedback guys. Cheers!

A good roundhouse like that will knock somebody on their assets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzu2xpoKiiY

Will it break the spine? Maybe if someone lands wrong. This is animation, it is meant to be exaggerated. Classic squash and stretch. The guys crumpled body is the squash. Like this:
https://www.animdesk.com/wp-content/uploads/miltdrawings20-1-1024x503.jpg

Using the logic of the criticism given, the above Disney cartoon should have had Edgar talking like that all of the time unless someone gave a powerful enough blow to break his jaw.

Lifemovesat24fps, your work is great. Most of the animations posted on this forum consist of flat static one angle puppeted characters sliding around on screen with very little change and no dynamism. Keep doing what you are doing. I don’t see how to private message on this forum or on youtube but would love to work with you sometime.

Awesome! I’m always looking to collaborate! I’m not sure how to PM on here either, but on youtube you can go to my channel, click on the about section and there’s a “send message” button.

I really appreciate your words of encouragement. :smiley: