Starting the Fight Scene

Starting from where I left off with my last scene, I began with the girl moving her head down to push herself up from the floor. I initially did this on 'ones' (24 rather than 12 drawings ('on twos') per second) due to the last scene only flowing fast enough on single frames; double frames made the throwing actions far too slow and sluggish. However it soon became apparent that moving her head down should be a very slow and sluggish affair in order to show how much effort its taking her to move and how possibly how weak she is compared to the hair.


Changed the first few frames to 'twos' now, this makes the movement a lot slower and more laboured, which is what I was aiming for.


Getting her to kneel up was tricky due to the shape of her arms... Since she has such tiny arms which come to a point at the hands/fingertips, I found it difficult to draw them from the correct perspective to show them facing towards the screen. In the end I got around this problem through vastly over exaggerating the enlarged perspective and literally made the arms 'shrink' as she pushes herself up. It took quite a bit of trial and error to make it look convincing, but the result works surprisingly well and has the added benefit of making her look like she's leaning/sitting back with a curved spine rather than just moving straight up vertically. It also allowed me to add more noticeable squash to the hands and she starts to push herself up.


Standing up from the kneeling position was easier, but getting the hair to fall/trail correctly around her feet was tricky. I had to map out a curved line for the pigtails to follow, keeping perspective in mind and all the while trying to make it flow naturally like the soft hair it should be. I don't want the harshness to creep in until the hair actually comes alive, so its important at this stage to animate her hair and fluidly as possible. This includes the hair gathered above her hair ties; I spent a long time with a small brush and a very zoomed-in sage area making sure I got the subtle bounce of right has she stands. Its a tiny detail, but it makes all the difference, I think.