Hiya! Nice to meet all of you.

[Kracko]

I'm a student artist/animator that has always been a big fan of belly dancing. I've always really wanted to make belly dancing animations and get feedback from real belly dancers so I can make much more appealing and realistic belly dancing animations. It's such a beautifully sensual art form and it's really awesome to be here and have the possibility of getting a better perspective on how to capture this type of choreography in my animations.

Here's some of the work that I've done thus far pertaining to belly dancing

http://fav.me/d9bb0yh

http://fav.me/d96z5yj

I hope my work is enjoyable. I'll post new belly dancing related animations somewhere on this forum when I get the chance to. Thank you.

 

[Zorba]

If the links are supposed to be animated, they're not playing for me (firefox on a Mac)...

I'd like to see you do some male Belly Dancers - artwork of/for us is very rare!

 

[Kracko]

ahh I see. They are SWF files so you will need to have the latest version of flash installed to view them.

Here's the first one of those animations in a gif format: http://orig09.deviantart.net/fd2b/f/2015/235/5/7/2wseji_by_krackodude-d96vc5k.gif


Hmm.. I'm not sure if there are any male belly dancer models. The only model I've ever used for animations is this one:

She's a video game character that belly dances. Maybe one of these days I could possibly work with a male model if there's enough demand for it.

 

[Darshiva]

I know the game you're talking about and my well-meaning husband thought I might like it - WRONG! The outfit is a cheesy harem fantasy bit of fluff that wouldn't stand up to the impact of what she does in the game, let alone actual dancing. The dance moves she does are clumsy and unpracticed. Why, it's almost like the animators went to youtube and found the worst possible six week wonder candidate for a reference model they could use.

Which probably explains why your animations are clumsily flailing their arms and stomping out a wahda wa noss (hip drop kick in laymans terms). It's a poor representation of a very simple bellydance move and very inelegant. I know you can do better with better resources, so I'm going to suggest you go find Sadie Marquardt on youtube and WATCH. She has a very elegant, crisp set of moves and she has a shape that your target audience finds appealing. Much better than using a video of someone dancing around their lounge in a bra and a shawl.

I also recommend that when you do use her as a source of inspiration, you give credit to her by way of a linkback. This serves two purposes. Firstly, it shows how good you are at animating. Secondly, it helps to stomp out the idea that bellydance is just 5 minutes of hip-shaking that anyone can do without training. Since you're here on a bellydance forum seeking both approval and advice from that community, I can only assume that you would like to generate goodwill here. This is one way to do it.

Pop some clothes on your character too - there are much better ways to show off motion. In bellydance we use TONS of fringe. Your pride in your work suggests to me that you are up to the challenge of adding it to your animation. If you do, you will show off the excellence of your work AND do so without sexualising our dance form - a win for everyone. Animate each strand of fringe and WOW your audience with your skill. I know you're up to the challenge.

 

[Kracko]

This is the kind of response I've been looking for See, I would have had no idea that her character design was a misrepresentation since no one ever really talks about Shantae being properly representative of belly dancers.

I will admit that I had no references for the animations that I had used previously. But I will definitely make sure to look up Sadie Marquardt and study her movements. And I always try my best to credit sources that I use. If I do get inspired by her choreography I will make sure to credit her properly. And now that I think about it, it would be really nice if there was a much better representation of belly dancing than what's in that silly game.

Ahh yes. I did get a similar comment on another one of my posts http://bellydanceforums.net/threads/19636-Belly-Dancing-Animations-and-Art?p=237468#post237468 about clothing for the models I use. I'll try to find a model that has decent clothing and has some fringe to their outfit as well.

I really appreciate this comment. Thank you. I am definitely up to the challenge and will look to follow through on all of that. I'm not looking to disappoint.

 

[Trumpets Go!]

welcome
thats great work for being a student
im a student too but not good much in belly