Test your rage – The polishing continues
Have you ever got this feeling when working on a shot where you ask yourself, alright what is the next thing I can push to make this shot better? What else can I polish?
Well I did today 
It’s been a few weeks since I started working on the crossover to Maya and I must say the reason I’m taking my time is to make sure I don’t overlook any important elements of the shot.
One of the things I wanted to test while working on this shot was what will the outcome be if I spend enough time on getting things to feel right. Some of the things I did involved getting feedback from my peers at work, reading about animation theory, methods and processes, tips, different blog posts I found on various websites such as Flip, Kevin Koch’s Synchrolux, Shawn Kelly’s tips and tricks, Carlos Baena and off course the watching and studying the tutorials of the one and only Jason Ryan.
In a sense I feel like I am at a stage where I looked at my shot for so long that I need a fresh eye to help me with some useful feedback on how to push it further. Currently I am trying to ask myself what can I do to bring it to a feature level? I guess the first thing I gotta do is take a break from it for a day or so hey?
Anyhow, hit me if you have any ideas,
Cheers till next time.
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Hi, my name is Avner, and I am addicted to animation!
Welcome to my work in progress animation workbook. Feel free to share ideas, thoughts, feedback or anything else that can help me evolve and further my learning. 
hey Av… nice to see this piece splined.. so it’s easy for me to critique it
overall looks and reads good.. there are just some timing and spacing problems here and there that you should be aware of..
the second spit hand needs to be better spaced or timed because right now it looks like a jerk or a pop.. so you need to soften that up without making it look floaty.. probably just give it more frames and add more space in your antic, and give more frames for your settle after the action… (spit).
the other spacing and timing problem i see is when he is about to trip and coming unbalanced.. is great when you have boris going screen right.. you should keep the same flow to go screen left because it looks a bit too fast for that.
pose at frame 132 doesn’t quite work with the action he is doing.. concerning the feet.. if you have the feet sliding he would fall inmediately…. why don’t you put his feet planted one back and the other in front.. making a C shape through the body?.. that would look better i think.
and finally i think you need to work more in the fall and the last beat when the metal piece falls into his head.. the pose at 349 is too broad and unnatural i find.. usually you have this kind of pose in a fast action so you will feel it not see it.. you know what i mean?? i think you only need an overlap kinda flow with both legs.. going up and going down to the final pose.. but pop up with a bend and then overlap them until you have them both down..
I hope it helps mate! keep that up!
Hey Av
I like your work and, in particular, your workflow and ethic. Finding the time to come home from work and animate is a big effort. Inspiring stuff!
Here’s a crit from a student, for what it’s worth…
If the head of the hammer is so heavy then I think it might be worthwhile tracing out the arcs it would follow with an erasable marker on your screen once the character has it up off the ground.
Where the hammer head goes is what drives the action, I think. The character is lead by the hammer after he’s lifted it.
If that was the case, I think the energy from the first lift would take the hammer head up higher than waist height like you have shown it. But then it would swoop down to a low point on the back side of the character swinging around. Then it would go up again. Maybe?
I think the hammer head loses it’s weight in the arc that it travels in the animation.
Having watched a bit of the Olympics the motion reference I have in mind for the arc is something like and athlete doing the spin in a hammer throw.
Cheers
Hey Avner,
Looking good. I can tell you’ve spent a lot of time on this. I havn’t looked at the other comments… so this is coming straight from a first up look. The timing and general flow works… so does the staging… A couple of areas could be simplified, though… There’s a lot of movement throughout and having the animation still at times will help to balance it out…
At the beginning he spits into his hands. He doesn’t need to lunge forward to do this… and turning behind him isn’t necessary… just standing on the spot and raising his hands to his mouth is enough and then the rumbing as you have it… you don’t even need to move the body.
The stretch back on 130 is too much… exaggeration is good… but it’s too much here. Also, when he comes back down on 145 he comes down too far… can come down only half as much.
I like the look behind him (173).
From 180-285 is very good… I wouldn’t change this.
Around 285 more frames need to be added… maybe 5-10 frames extra to help sell the change in weight. Maybe adding an arc for the path of action (290-302) would help here, too.
Maybe cutting out the stumble will help it to read better. Try cutting out the frames from 300-315… (cut straight to 315 from 300 – might have to add a few frames) and see if it doesn’t read better… just an idea.
I love the rest.
Good work on the weight between 180-285!
Keep up the good work.
Aaron