Stance animation

[Alex Sinigaglia]

Note: this is not my OC (Original Character); this character concept belongs to Sasuderuto/Fernando208. I just animated the stance. The first frame is made by him, the other two frames were made by me, to make the animation.



Is it ok?

Before animating bigger stuff, I want to practice on this one.

[YellowLime]

Well, you purposefully didn't leave the hair completely static, and to me it looks a bit worse than if you had.
If you're going to have the hair move, then maybe don't have it change THAT much. (although maybe we can attribute that to shonen-style exaggeration )
Right now, the changes in the hair are messy, and the mass of the hair visibly changes (take for example the first upward spike of hair, or the inside lines just below.

The right leg (his left) is obviously bulkier than the left one (his right). I would make the left one fatter

Maybe it would look better if his head went down slightly at the same time as it goes forward, and go up again when going backwards... (Although, maybe the change wouldn't be subtle enough in this resolution.)

[Alex Sinigaglia]

Well, you purposefully didn't leave the hair completely static, ...

It's true.

...and to me it looks a bit worse than if you had.
If you're going to have the hair move, then maybe don't have it change THAT much. (although maybe we can attribute that to shonen-style exaggeration )

I wanted to animate everything, but in this resolution it's quite difficult.

Right now, the changes in the hair are messy, and the mass of the hair visibly changes (take for example the first upward spike of hair...

First from left?

or the inside lines just below.

I see. I guess I can leave them static.

The right leg (his left) is obviously bulkier than the left one (his right). I would make the left one fatter

I don't know if this error from the concept is intended (one leg fatter than the other), but I'll obviously tweak it a bit.

Maybe it would look better if his head went down slightly at the same time as it goes forward, and go up again when going backwards... (Although, maybe the change wouldn't be subtle enough in this resolution.)

I actually didn't think of that, but at this scale... in any case I'll try.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Alex Sinigaglia]

I made some edits and fixes:


I hope I covered all the feedback.

[Alex Sinigaglia]

The guy I helped is happy and I'm happy too! I did a good thing!

Now I'm trying to animate this:

The first frame is made by Chamat ( http://chamat.deviantart.com/ ), I made the second (unfinished) frame.

How many frames shall I make to animate this?

[Gil]

Make the keyframes first, then decide how many tween frames you want. Probably 3 keyframes in a ABCBA pattern will work, but for a slight improvement, 4 keys (ABCDA) would work even better.

For a sprite of that size I think anything over 8 frames might be overkill, depending on how much you move him, so maybe 4 frames and 4 tweens (assuming this is an idle stance).

In terms of movement, if all frames are equal play length, I'd personally go with 6: 4 keys in ABCDA pattern, with a tween frame before the first and third key, so: AB*CD*. That makes it so the character slows down near the start and end of the animation (ease in-out).

You make me want to redo my old fighter sprite (http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/31687.htm)

[Alex Sinigaglia]

Yes, it's an idle stance and I think I'll go with 6 frames (4 key frames and 2 in between). Thank you.

[Gil]

Small correction on a mistake I made, AB*CD* is not "ease in-out", it's "ease in", because you are easing into the first and third keyframe.

[Alex Sinigaglia]

Second frame is done! This is my first time spriting in this style.



Do you think I should move the head a little in the right?

[Conzeit]

try not to do straight ahead animation (that means just drawing one frame after the other) specially with stances, go and do all the key poses of the animations in outlines only so that you know what poses he will go trough (probably look at dudley's sf3 keyframes in this case?) I say specially in stances because otherwise you'll just end up with a guy wobbling around instead of going trough stances that make sense and a lot of stuff will just shift back and forth for no reason whatsoever. for example why does his thumb go in by a pixel in the second frame? no need

Also, with this being KOF style make sure you refference the way their folds change as they move, this is a big part of what makes it stand out