Thanks for all the comments!
@Locrian, Rolfy, Higgins:
Good suggestions, I need to play around with the key tangents bit to give some speed variation as you noticed. Yeah the throwing animation should be more of a "launch" rather than a smooth movement.
It was tougher than I thought animating weapons! Something so up-close I'm constantly second-guessing myself (does the hand look better rotated 2 degrees this way or that way?).
Another thing that bugs me is the .X format. Does it strike anyone else as weird that the de-facto directx model format totally relies on a few freeware, use-at-your-own-risk exporters? Thank god for the Panda exporter, even though it took me forever to get the skin weights to export correctly. I finally realized that editable polys don't export skin modifier weights quite right in Panda, converting to mesh sorted it out.
@Locrian:
Normal mapping has totally redefined the texturing process for me. Now modelling and texturing is all woven together. All the folds, seams, and shading is baked down from a high-poly sculpted model. I did use a tiling leather texture for the gloves, and smaller details were hand-painted or provided by the normal map.
I'm also going to have an "enchanted elven bow" that allows you to zoom into your enemies, complete with a "magical" looking zoom HUD!
