Hooker firing gun - animation

[Scummbuddy]

Only thing I would change:
She's not dressed like a hooker! Maybe as a sassy girl, but I would't dare to ask "Hey, babe! How much?".

stefano, did you read the first line of this thread?

First of all, nevermind the hooker, it's not supposed to be a hooker firing the gun...

and seriously, you do not need the copyright symbol. thats ridiculous.

fantastic animation so far. I can't wait to see more.

[stuh505]

animation looks really good, except that the gun has very odd kick to it...honestly a hooker would have weak girly arms and holding it with 1 hand, the gun would kick back quite a bit going around 100 fps...in this pic, the kick appears to be EXTREMELY delayed which makes the animation look very odd to me.  I think you should condence all of the kick into ****1*** frame.  The quality of the girl's stance, her hair, is very nice.

[Pesty]

The only problem I have that nobody else seems to have mentioned is that her left arm is too short. The general rule is if you're standing up straight, your elbow is at your waist and your fingertips are at your mid-thigh. For her stance, lower the elbow a tiny bit and make her forearm longer and she'll look more in proportion. That's just a little nitpick for an otherwise awesome piece. I love the way the hair bounces.

[East]

Now, this was a lot of response, so I'll see what I can do to react to it all..

In order of appeareance:

The gun tilting down at the end looks weird to me (like it goes limp) [...]

Was going for a bit more relaxed hand-pose, unless you mean the metal of the gun itself seems to go limp?

That gun looks pretty heavy. I think she'd have trouble aiming with a single hand.

Yeah, I did animate it so that the gun should look heavy, but I don't think it's so heavy that she gets too much trouble aiming. Also, does take a moment to stabilise it before firing, though.

IMO her belly is a tiny bit too staight in the standing frame and I think the swaying of the hair is slightly too much.

You are quite right about that, and it's something I was supposed to fix before animating her, but since I got carried away I never got around. Not too late, though

But I think it would be cool to see the "pod" of the bullet being explused from the gun and leave it smoking in the floor for 3 or 4 frames

It would be a really cool effect. I had it planned to be that way at first, a case ejecting, but then figured I'd be lazy and make it caseless-ammunition -- which naturally doesn't fit well with the rest of the story, so I'm just going to scrap that idea and add a case being ejected..

I'm not sure what kind of gun she's holding but it doesn't look like a six shooter.  If that's the case there should be some action on the gun.

It's supposed to be a futuristic gun of some sort of make and model, but you are right, it's not a revolver. I really like the one you made, and I'll see if I can make something similar, myself.

The gun is just a placeholder, though. The very few times I've made 2D animation I've always tried to get the general motion of it down first, before adding details to 'separate' objects like, for instance, guns.

You should also make her 'lady bumps' bounce a little when she fires the gun.

Hehe, yeah, the girlfriend pointed this out as well..

It might have had a bit more impact if she'd actually put her other hand up and looked away as she fired the gun but that's too late to change now and unnessercery...

This is the second 2D-animation I've made (first one being the walkcycle for the main character), so while the idea of her supporting the gun with a second hand, and turning her head away as the shot goes off, would fit perfectly, it was just feeling a bit too daunting at the time to consider

Now that I've been playing around with it some more it doesn't seem all that scary, and I might revisit it and do it something like that. Or just use the idea for another character

I think that right shoe looks a bit weird, you could fix this extra pixel there.

The pixel sticking out from her heel, right? Yep, I'll get rid of that one.

Firearms usually apply recoil pressure to shoulder. You could try to make shoulder move back more. Not sure about light handguns though.

Yeah, I have a feeling light handguns might work differently. While the kickback you can see in the animation suggest a seriously powerful recoil, it really shouldn't be, seeing how that's a small caliber firearm. I think I'll just settle with the the recoil being absorbed by the bending and upward motion of the arm, as well as perhaps imagining her shoulder moves back a bit behind her hair

Also, the copyright stuff is pretty useless, because no-one actually steals anyone's images here, and you could have more edits and paintovers if you'd remove the copyright crap.

Agreed, it's pretty redundant and it does make paintovers slightly more difficult. Will stay away from it in the future

She's not dressed like a hooker! Maybe as a sassy girl, but I would't dare to ask "Hey, babe! How much?".

I think perhaps you have more experience with hookers than i have.. .. but seriously speaking, I'm trying to stay away a bit from the stereotypes. Granted, I'll be using quite a few since it does add a bit of a nice flavour, but.. all right, perhaps I'm just trying to excuse myself here, hehe..

and seriously, you do not need the copyright symbol. thats ridiculous.

Definitely, won't have to see those in the future

honestly a hooker would have weak girly arms and holding it with 1 hand, the gun would kick back quite a bit going around 100 fps...

Oh, I don't know.. Guns are tricky things. We're lead to believe by Hollywood that handguns are portable Big Berthas that will knock a guy out of his socks when firing them, and send badguys flying out through windows.. Again, I'm no expert in hookers, but her profession aside I think I'll let her be a strong little woman who can handle the recoil nicely.

in this pic, the kick appears to be EXTREMELY delayed which makes the animation look very odd to me.  I think you should condence all of the kick into ****1*** frame.

The delay was a delibarate choice, to give it a little overshot (I can probably not use that term in this instance, but I'll do it anyway). It's not something that bugs me too much, and is in fact the way I prefer it to be. But still, thanks for the input

The only problem I have that nobody else seems to have mentioned is that her left arm is too short. The general rule is if you're standing up straight, your elbow is at your waist and your fingertips are at your mid-thigh. For her stance, lower the elbow a tiny bit and make her forearm longer and she'll look more in proportion.

I did initially make her anatomically correct, the way you described it, but it just didn't look good. But that's just me not very comfortable with this kind of low-res graphics just yet, and particularly when there's 'organics' involved I get trouble, especially at joints..


So in conclusion..

Thanks for a lot of great feedback. I will take it to heart, and while I've decided to just make a couple of smaller tweaks (and add a real gun) I won't work too much on this particular animation as I need to move on to actually make some progress; but I've got a lot of things to keep in mind that will definitely help me out. So thank you

[TheYak]

On recoil and weight:  It depends greatly upon what type/caliber it is.  Some animators, game creators and even filmmakers have overlooked kickback in the past - particularly how an automatic weapon will ride upwards unless it's got a compensation mechanism or is held by a burly soon-to-be-governator person.  To make up for this, they seem to have given even a .22 pistol enough kickback to cause bruised joints.  Because of the way her arm is held in firing position, I'd imagine a twitch in the torso and upward riding of the hand as well as slight flex in the elbow - not too much more than that unless it's a powerful weapon (.45 vs. a 9mm or something). 

Another factor that gets exagerrated is weight.  There are some hefty pistols but yours looks a bit more like a plasticy low-caliber type.  There aren't too many handguns that even a fairly weak person couldn't level for a moment before firing - it's after it's held for a few moments that you'd begin to waver.  Her firing position doesn't seem physically improbable to me, just highly amateurish and unlikely to hit anything more than a short distance away.   I like the third pic with the frames dropped.  I think the 1 (maybe 2) frame for kickback suggestion is a good one though. It should be rather instantaneous, but to each his/her own.

[stuh505]

Oh, I don't know.. Guns are tricky things. We're lead to believe by Hollywood that handguns are portable Big Berthas that will knock a guy out of his socks when firing them, and send badguys flying out through windows.. Again, I'm no expert in hookers, but her profession aside I think I'll let her be a strong little woman who can handle the recoil nicely.

Hehe, ok, that's understandable.  However, I am somewhat of an expert in firearms, caliber, and recoil.  I have worked to derive mathematical equations for accurately calculating recoil, tissue displacement in wounds, and many other ballistic situations.  Firearm statistics is a big hobby of mine on the side of AGS.  I can tell you that anyone who holds a gun like that, be it a little girl or a full grown man, will have the gun kick back a lot.  When a gun kicks, it happens instantly.  That is the point.  It is completely unrealistic to have her fire, and then wait a frame or more than 1 frame to have her arm move back.  At that point, what you as an animator are saying is "there is zero kick, she has chosen to lift the gun afterwards of her own volition."

Hollywood would have you believe a load of bull.  They would have you believe that a bullet can knock a man back.  This is obviously false as any physicist can tell you.  The felt effect of a bullet from a medium caliber handgun is about the same as dropping a brick from a height of 1 foot onto your chest.  So, it could perhaps make you take a step back in shock, but it will not throw you back (that goes for even .50 caliber "sniper" rifles)

[Stefano]

Only thing I would change:
She's not dressed like a hooker! Maybe as a sassy girl, but I would't dare to ask "Hey, babe! How much?".

stefano, did you read the first line of this thread?

First of all, nevermind the hooker, it's not supposed to be a hooker firing the gun...

Oops! My bad.
It was fun writting it, thow. 

[East]

I understand where you're coming from. Realistically the recoil should probably affect her more than it does now. I made some modifications to try and make it look better, but I don't think it worked out very well..

[Stefano]

HAHAHA! That was unexpected! 
And sends the message in a funny way.

[baba]

One part has her knees bending fully backwards!  :o