Watched the final episode of Samurai Champloo again, got a few ideas from Jin's fight with his sensei, and then his later fight with Kariya Kagetoki, both using the "Mujuushin Kenjutsu" style, which seems to focus on blinding speed.

Basically I wanted to see if I could replicate the way the animators used frame timing and secondary motion to imply that moves happened so fast, they can't be seen. SO I watched the fights frame-by-frame a couple times, and then tried to do it on my own.

Make sure you FULL-VIEW, zoom in, to see this in motion. The filmstrip is the preview, the full-view is the action!

Near as I can figure, the trick is essentially to imply the path of the blade with flashing arcs that last for one frame, but take place one frame after the character has begun to settle into their new position. You also don't draw the transitional tween for the character, simply move him into each position, add another frame of that position with a slight series of changes based on weight and intertial drift and timing, and then add tweens as needed. The straw dummy serves also to imply that a blow is struck even though we can't see it, by virtue of it's reactive movements.

Makes sense? Awesome!

I think I did okay... I'm sure I'll try this again in something else, soon. As usual, Easytoon, and about 2 hours of work. 23 frames drawn, played at 25 frames a second (give or take a bit depending on your box, sometimes). I like that we have new categories for Animation, finally... I guess this falls under a pencil test, since it serves essentially the same purpose, even though it's drawn digitally.