Original subtitles

- Before I start working on the next pose,

the anticipation for the kick, I will pose the bag.

Since our character is pretty close to the bag

just after the hook, and as you will need a bit of room

to execute the anticipation of the switch key,

we can rotate the bag farther away

as the hook was a very powerful punch.

Just make sure that you push the bag away

in the right direction.

While the jab and the cross

were pushing the bag along the y-axis,

the hook tend to push it along the x-axis.

The second thing I'd like to note

is that the left foot is now back

on the stance of the character.

So it will be able to throw the kick directly.

As the benefit of the foot shuffle,

is to get the kicking leg back

and before you throw the kick.

But if our character was to throw the kick

from this position, it will be pretty weak

because all his weight is supported by the left leg.

So can you throw a kick with your left leg

if most of your weight is on this leg?

When you throw a hook,

it's a classic to pivot around your left leg.

It's where you can reposition your right leg back

and return to what we call the orthodox stance,

where the left foot is the leading foot so it's in front,

and the right leg is the rear foot and is in the back.

With this in mind, we can start working

on our anticipation pose for the kick.

And that's not a problem if our feet position

is not perfect.

We will be able to reposition our whole character

later on if needed.

But as repeated many time,

animation is not a linear workflow,

and you will need to go back and forth

onto your different poses.

Now focusing on the pose, as usual,

I first moved the feet.

And once I have my contact define,

I can work on the toes or root orientation.

Here, fully have a look the orientation of the feet.

Look how the right foot is opened.

By opening the right foot to the outside at this way,

it's gonna be way easier to rotate the hips,

to pull the left leg and kick with full power.

Now, I've looked to the twisting of the whole torso.

The chest is twisting to the right to its maximum

and the left arm and left shoulder

are also orientated this way.

This allow to load energy before the kick

and during the kick release,

the arm will swing the opposite way.

By swinging left, the arm will input energy

into the hips and push them to swing right,

and pull the left leg forward.

The weight of our character is shifting to the right leg.

Right foot is flat

while the left foot heel is slightly raised.

The whole shape of our character,

it's silhouette and line affection,

clearly finds that he's going to kick forward

and trying to raise his whole body.

We now need to work on what I believe

will be the strongest pose of our whole animation,

the kicking pose.

As usual, I've look to the video reference.

Look at how the right food rotates during the heat.

Also, the right heel is raised.

It helps rotating around the right foot,

but it also allows to bring more power

to the kick because you are both pushing forward

by the twist of the whole body

and pushing hip with the supporting leg.

I've immediately decided to push the pose

and kick higher.

This will give a better

and more dynamical shape to our character.

Also, it's a pretty classic move from the Thai.

Instead of trying to hit the rib cage,

they often kick into the arm

so that will drop your guard because of the pain.

If you watch more reference of roundhouse kicking,

the first mistake to avoid is to think

that the leg is kicking upward.

Powerful kick should be thrown

as horizontal as possible,

or even by getting down during the heat pose.

So you need to give the proper orientation

to the kicking foot.

The top of the kicking foot should be whether horizontal

or even pointing a little downward,

and so should be the knee of your character.

Also, we are not kicking with the foot,

but we are kicking with the shin

because it's way harder.

Think of the leg as a saw

that need to cut through the bag.

Here's another concept that is very important

into our kicking pose

is that we are not snapping onto the surface of the bag,

but we are trying to kick through the bag.

So the whole body is leaning into the kick.

And so, the leg is not fully extended,

giving a bit of additional range

to push the bag even further.

As usual, don't forget to rotate around your character

to make sure that the pose work from every angle,

that the line affection is clearly defined,

and that you push the pose as much as you can

to sell the impact and to communicate, as well as possible,

the will of your character.

This is also the pose where the bag

will be the most deformed,

as it was a swinging back towards the character.

And we are now applying

a very brutal force the opposite way.

While I'd like the animation

to be at least semi-realistical

because this is a better way to learn

than going fully stylized directly.

That's perfectly fine to exaggerate

what's happening with the punching bag.

So while the character will be recovering from the kick,

I think that will be great to sell power of the kick.

That instead of just swinging the punching bag,

we throw it away.

I will swing it a lot.

I will even create a nice curve to it.

And then, I will simply move

the root controller of the bag.

After the kick, we can see that the free fighters

are taking a step back,

and then transition into their idle pose.

First, they pivot back from the kick

into the contact pose,

with the weight mostly on the right leg.

And this is the pose we are going to build.

We could consider this as some kind of down pose,

if it was a work cycle.

The character is pretty relaxed

and slowly shifting his weight back onto the left leg,

the one that has just kicked.

But the weight is still mostly upon the right leg

while the right foot has been rotated, it doesn't move.

I haven't changed its location.

Once I've roughly posed my feet,

I will pose the torso.

And as I did for most of the previous poses,

I will first console any transformation

on the chest and hips controller.

As usual, take the time to look at the line of action

on the reference pose.

It's more subtle than usual

because it's a slow paced movement,

but it is still there.

Watch the position of the center of gravity

compared to the feet.

It's slightly more on top of the right foot.

And finally, watch for extra details

like the hips and chest orientation,

the line of the shoulder,

the position of the hands, their orientation.

Every detail that will help you to identify the pose

and reproduce it at your side.

The final pose will be the idle pose,

and it's gonna be pretty close

to what we have on frame five.

But before I pose the character,

I'm working on the punching bag.

I'm just trying to guess where it would land after the kick.

Walking from the front view

and scrubbing through the different poses of the bag

will help me figure out its orientation

when it's flying away.

That's not super important

if the current pose is not perfect,

as we will use later on motion path

to better track the position of the bag.

Regarding the character pose,

I won't dive that much into detail

because it a pose that is very similar

to the very first pose we have build.

The only specific tip you have to check here

is that I've only pulled the right leg back

because the left leg is not supposed to change location.

Because while it's getting back into idle pose,

his shifting his whole weight on the left leg

to pull the right leg back.

And once the right leg will be settled back,

the weight will shift onto the right leg.

And so the weight is removed from the left foot,

so we can slightly raise the heel into the idle pose,

with the left leg ready to block any incoming kick.

The incoming video will be a slow paced time-lapse

of the whole blocking process we've done so far.

And in the further video,

we are going to continue on blocking our animation.