Anime's legendary techniques

talking about anime , you cannot mention the flair that it deliver in its visual aspects compared to western animation , which form the line that place anime into a category of its own. These types of flair ca  range from incredible colour working to backgrounds, and exaggerated character designs, and of course , the all important "sakuga"- moments when the animation quality excelled tremendously. Within sakuga though, there are also various techniques and methods of delivering this quality, methods that form over years of irritating upon itself and finding new ways to deliver the message of the scene to the audience, all the while staying within the golden triangle of anime : visual communication , style and cost effectiveness, out of which at least 2 should be pleased. These techniques from then on had been so influential that it has more or less integrated into the very core of modern anime animation and serves as useful tools and tricks to deliver style and in many situation ,showcase and advertise the quality of the animation itself, especially for action-heavy scenes :

#1: Yutapon cubes 

This techniques invented and named after Yukata Nakamura, is the process of animating an environment that contains some form of explosion or destruction , within it , the object that is exploding instead of breaking into many irregular shapes that has individual shapes and size, it breaks into cubes shape. The purpose of this at first was for animator to animate more easily and effectively since they didnt have to draw multiple shapes for each scene of animation. However , it ended up creating a very unique style, and since then has been applied into various animations , another proof of laziness creating art !

#2 : Obari punch and Obari pose :

This is one case of the technique being so influential and widely used that if show to an anime fan today , it would just passed of as a regular punch to the screen. The Obari punch,
named after its creator Masami Obari, consists of the character delivering a punch by first pulling their arm back really far ( with very dramatic use of perspective ) , then tilt their head and puff out their chest and then finally letting the punch flies toward the screen , usually with the head follows behind.





This technique make the punch has much more impact as the exaggerated perspective make it seems like the punch travels a much longer distance from start to finished , and has been a standard in modern anime fight scenes

The Obari pose also from the same creator is like it name suggests , a static pose for a character with a weapon of long length ( in most cases ), with the character standing firm , leg spread in the the far back of the scene , with the tip of the weapon aimed toward the screen and occupies most of the frame ( again using very exaggerated perspective ).

  

  



This emphasise the scale of the weapon , and therefore, create a sense that it is epic and powerful, and that it is something to be reckon with. Following that, this coolness would be transferred from the weapon to its user, creating a badass vibe for the character, which is always a nice thing to have as it is an easy way of getting the audience to get engaged with said character. Just from the pictures above , you can see how much this technique has been used and portayed since its creation.

#3 Itano Circus (also called Marcoss Missile Massacre)  :

Developed by Ichiro Itano, this is a technique that involves the character moving rapidly across the screen while being chased by multiple projectiles ( which can include anything from missiles, bullets, lasers,...) . A true bread and butter cut for any action anime, it is a scene that involves A LOT of fast , stylised movement that sometime almost blind the eyes of the audience trying to follow the character. Interestingly enough it started very much like that in a sense that the projectiles are animated to move very fast and really frantic, only forming a trail when they're coming close to hitting their mark. In more modern versions, uses more linear paths and sharp 90 degree turns for the projectile makes it much ore easier to follow, moreover , uses of colour is also taken into consideration , such as making the colour of the project tile really bright on a dark background , or making the the character being chased brighter while the projectiles darker, therefore you can make out the movement of the projectiles just from the movement of the character. Another distinct part of the Itano circus is that the act of being chased by the projectiles almost always move to corners of the screen usually in a anti clock-wise pattern as a good circus is one that leads the eye around the entire screen, much like the rules of composition in painting. It can be said that the Itano circus is usually an cinematic short-hand for narrowly escaping danger, which create a sense of rush and panic that is very fitting a action scene, delivering great style and movements.

Commissions and placing priorities

I didn't think that I would be making a blog on this, as my Deviantart's commissions work have been going very smoothly for a while now , but a recent decision and the reactions that followed really highlighted the situation to me. First , for a bit of hindsight, I've been on Deviantart ( a art-sharing platform) for nearly 4 years now , and have started doing commissions on it since 2012. However , as I gain more skills and knowledge, I began switching to Patreon and their subscription-based services for a more stable source of income, and have been focusing on expanding my audience on it, which eventually meant moving the properties that have been opened to the public on Deviantart to it , limiting them to Patrons. This includes HD images, Work-in-process, tutorials, etc... and most recently, the ability to get commissions, which brings us to the argument at hand.

When I announced this on my deviantart page, It was met with very mixed reactions. Some of them was a general disappointment but acknowledgement of my priorities, as I explained that I wanted to focus more on university work instead, and so I would like to make the most out of my commission time, which mean doing it for those that are actually paying me monthly rather one-off.  On the other hand, other commenters deemed it a terrible decision , most basing on the fact that I'm losing potential customers , to quote :

In business, they call that a bad decision. You're cutting off roughly 80% of your potential customers, restricting the potential cash inflow to just a select few that can afford to pay a monthly fee while receiving nothing in return 99% of the time. A better idea would be setting up a queue to a limit of 3-5 people on DA. This way, you are keeping your entire customer base (those who are saving up for a commission they want, but can't afford to pay monthly to receive, say moi) while restricting the flow. Once one commission is finished, it is up to the artist whether they want to move the queue up and open a slot or just shrink the queue and close it until the commissions are finished and payments are made. That is a much more simple solution, as you get income on 2 fronts, with Patrons still receiving Premium benefits, such as higher priority.

My arguments against this was first off, they are judging the position without context of my work ethics, outside influence and so-on , but solely on the "business" side of it. Right now, on top of my work for uni, which will take up 90% of the time, there's the remaining 10% divided between personal work, weekly fan art works, commissions, chores and socialising. As you can see, it is VERY tight, which is part of the reason why commissioning has always been a more of a back seat for me, and the reason why I switch to a monthly contribution system. So in this case, choosing between having 10000 potential customers , out of whom around 30 would actually have the money to pay for your commissions or a smaller but growing , who is constantly giving you cash regardless of how much work is done for them, yes , I'd choose to cater for the latter first. Moreover, combining that fact with the limited I have, I would always be inclined to pushed them up in commission "queue s" ( which to be honest would never reach over 5 at a single time ), therefore the crowds on deviantart would constantly be pushed back , risking that with the amount of work I have , the possibility of me completely forgetting their order. Therefore I think, the most logical way was to persuade them in joining my patreon. Besides, I AM focusing on expanding it, and you get various other benefits along with that subscription , so you're not just paying to get commission rights. It definitely raised the fact that you can not cater to everyone's need all the time, and there is a point in time where you have to pick and choose what you really want to focus on.

However, I can acknowledge the opinion stated above as a sensible one from a customer standpoint , as a large portion of my audience are those who are like who can not afford a monthly fee for what is considered a hobby. Besides that, It would be terrible for those who has tried to saved up and are now blocked by this paywall. The solution right now for me is to keep priorities in commission for Patrons, but have special "periods" say like a holiday where I can do devi commissions only, which will probably consists of 4-5 slots per period. Then, I can keep my Patrons happy, while not forgetting my deviantart audience