Animation Troubles - Quest for Glory Combat

[Victor6]

I found practicing with a broom helps

It's all good until someone breaks a window...

Although you probably couldn't get away with a large blur effect, you could use a tracer style blur instead, which wouldn't look quite so out of place.

[Matti]

I found practicing with a broom helps

Haha, that's what my brother often does before drawing the animation frames of the knights in our game.  Well, instead of a broom he uses a cardboard roll.

The animation is good, though I would add an additional frame before the last one - or some motion blur like someone suggested.

[Corby]

Elbow Tuck.

So now the question is: how does one block an attack with a large battle axe? Using the pole or the blade part of the axe?

[Fedx]

I think you can block it using the pole, grabing the end of the pole with the left hand, and the right hand below the blade, in a position like this /, and when she receives the blow, back off a little bit

[Andail]

Yeah, with a big axe like that you probably can't parry as with a sword; you either just block the blow with the shaft and hope it doesn't break, or try to duck...

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Just having her hold it in front of her defensively will work.  It doesn't need to be more than one frame for the most part.  For the axe swing you might put one frame in the middle of the swing so it doesn't look so much like the axe is warping from one side to the other.  Aside from that it's a convincing animation!

[Scarab]

There's also some good battle axe animation here which could be useful for further inspiration, especially if you have the program that can download streaming video. As for blocking, I think holding the axe diagonally across the body and blocking with the handle should be sufficient.

[Corby]

Ya, I think I'll go with that. Should be only a few frames too!

Thanks Scarab for that video. Some neat moves in there, and some possible "bonus" attacks.

[Crimson Wizard]

Just one small comment: technically, her upper body should bend a little towards axe blade as she raises and swings it, because it's heavy and intertion will pull her upper torso towards it, like, I dunno, joystick is pulled by hand. If you think it will be too much headache to animate like that, then you may ignore this, because animation is good enough already; it's just that now she looks terribly strong to be able to strike like that
PS. Same goes to the guy in the video, he's just inhumanly strong to just swing the axe like that
(which is possibly OK for computer game)

[Ryan Timothy B]

Actually I'm curious here.  On the last Axe frame where it's hovering on the left side, is that supposed to be an attack that is inside the creature?  Or will it be hovering in the air like that cause it's already made it's cut and passed to the left side?

If it's only hovering in the air as the after attack, I suggest putting her left arm closer to the head of the axe to stop the momentum.  Otherwise the axe would never stop it's course (with human strength anyway) and she'd be forced to release the axe, like how a golfer accidentally releases his club.