I am in the same proverbial boat as far as spare time goes. heh! I completely understand what its like to do art with a busy schedule. As my studies ramp up in the next few weeks, my time will be reduced drastically. But thats ok, I just work on my animation a little bit every day and chip away at it. Eventually the little things add up to a beautiful graphic that can be shared with the world (even if the graphic is in fact a hideous monster).
For the animation, I am not worried about the claws on the right foot increasing in size, but I am glad that you pointed it out. As the Ghast shifts his weight to the right, he turns his claws towards the viewer. In an effort to forshorten and exaggerate the rotation of the foot, I made the claws grow bigger to the viewer's perspective. That was the original thought that I tried to convey, but do you think that the claws on the right foot need to be refined more?
Attached to this post are the frames for the defense animation and Zero's updated Ghast base frame. My first impression was that the Ghast's defense animation was a bit jumpy. But after looking at it while trying to ignore the flashing shadow, I think that my initial thought was wrong. I think that the heads, the feet, and the general shift of the Ghast's body weight from one leg to another are ok. The main jumpy piece is the movement of the Ghast's hands. While I admit the Ghast's hands move a long distance in a short amount of time, I believe that the overall impact of the speedy arms does not detract much from the quality of the defense animation's kinematics.
My intent was to stick with the movements of the Ghoul and Necrophage who retract thier claws to thier body when being attacked. Due to the Ghast's outstretched arms in the baseframe, this may not be feasible and may need to be readjusted. I am happy to do this, but I want to stay with the unit's flavor as much as possible. I would like to hear some input from thespaceinvader regarding how the Ghast looks defending.
