[C+C] Walk cycle

[pixlMan]

Hello, I'm trying to create art for my video game and I'm now learning how to make a simple walk cycle. What do you think of this walk cycle? It is only 4 frames and looks kinda choppy but it is one of my better ones. Do you have any tips regarding the character? What can I improve?

Also one last question how do I make my character not feel so lifeless? I've seen plenty of art and I get the impression that each pixel art character has a soul but my drawings feel flat and soul-less.

[CFKaligula]

To give your character life you have to give him character, you do this usually by giving him a face. Especially the eyes are important. Eyes are the soul of a character. You have the most lifeless eyes you can have in pixel art, so you have to make them different. If you find it too hard to give him different eyes, you can always make him special in other ways, make him look special. give him a long nose, a weird outfit etc.

Now for your walk cycle, you basically just had to frames and changed them a little bit. In motion, you dont'see these small changes, it looks like you just have a 2 frame animation. http://www.manningkrull.com/pixel-art/walking.php look at this tutorial for a 4 frame walk cycle.

Here are some changes I would make. There is a clear difference between the front and back leg. To create a bigger illusion of movement, his head and arms also move with his steps. His body sways with his legs.

[pixlMan]

Thanks for the help and improving my character. It seems that most of the time I'm having trouble making the eyes of my character stand out, I always get the impression that I'm running out of space or that the eyes are so big compared to the head that I doesn't look that good.

Why did you make the character smaller though every other frame? All this time I've been moving the whole character one pixel up every other frame.

Do you have any tips on how to make the north/south walk animation for this character? I always get stuck at this part and most tutorials that I have found only show the left and right walk cycle.

[CFKaligula]

I make him so short to exaggerate his movement, if he is only going 1 pixel up and down, you don't have much motion, people won't see it.
If you have a side scroller you dont'need north south walk cycles. You only need those if you are making a top down game, like an rpg or like LttP.

[pixlMan]

Yes, that is why I'm asking. Because I'm doing an RPG and the north/sound walking animations are really troubling me and I can't find any tutorial that will explain a simple 4 frame walk cycle for these positions.

[CFKaligula]

well if it's an rpg and it's top down, your perspective for this sprite is already wrong, if he is seen from above, how come we cant see the top of his head. Maybe this will explain some more about perspectives http://cyangmou.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Tutorial-1-Game-Perspectives-308022207

[pixlMan]

Ok, I'll do my research and post some new stuff for CC. Thanks