[C & C] The adventures of Mannequin Man

[Pixel_Snail]

Hey there guys, after a short hiatus I'm back in the pixel game.     My latest mini-goal/project is to try and get some basic animations down. I've created a quick and simple character (who I've dubbed Mannequin man) as my test subject and here's his attempt to walk: 





Any criticism welcome!

[MysteryMeat]

Legs look kinda funky and out of proportion, same for the arms. Try to make them a bit longer! Also, remember that the bob starts at the hips, not just the head!

[CFKaligula]

You chose a really tough perspective, not only is it really hard to actually animate from it, to actually show different enough silouette to show movement makes it even harder. Since nothing is impossible I tried doing a redesign + running animation.

Pay attention to anatomy. A human body isn't just a large rectangle. His right arm also has a weird shoulder lump, that has no reason to exist. I see you had a hard time with his feet and legs, legs are actually half of the human body so they are pretty long. You could make them shorter, but then you have to make them thin as well.


When running/walking what you are pretty much doing is swinging your limbs back and forth. This means that in your animation when you have 3 frames of the left leg swinging forwards, you will have 3 frames of the left leg swinging backwards.  In your animation you have 3 frames of the right leg in front of the body and 1 behind it. This makes it look like he is limping, since he spends so little time on his left leg. The left leg actually does get 2 frames in front and 2 frames behind, but you have 1 frame where it shoots out in front of the body, which is very unnatural. Try making the walking movement with your own body and see how your legs fold and move.


Mostly i would recommend choosing an easier perspective, either from the front or from the side, doing different perspectives is pretty hard, especially if you are just beginning.

[Pixel_Snail]

Thanks for all the advice posted, definitely a lot to mull over. I'm going to make another attempt at a walking animation over the next few days. 

Proportion wise, I was going for a more cartoonish look rather than something close to normal human proportions (although with that being said, the big right shoulder is definitely an oversight) - would you say on a stylistic level it still wouldn't work?

(I will also choose a much easier angle next time too)

[Pixel_Snail]

Here's an update    I've tried to incorporate all the advice posted and I used some reference material:

[MysteryMeat]

Good changes but the arm seems to wig out for a couple frames there. The back also dents inwards a bit once it clears the shoulder, spines are shaped like a subtle S.
Nothing too big to worry about besides that freakout on the arm, but handy stuff if you revisit it later for, say, more muscular characters.

[Pixel_Snail]

Good changes but the arm seems to wig out for a couple frames there. The back also dents inwards a bit once it clears the shoulder, spines are shaped like a subtle S.
Nothing too big to worry about besides that freakout on the arm, but handy stuff if you revisit it later for, say, more muscular characters.

I tweaked it to fix the arm problem. It was a really obvious bad frame as well and I'm not quite sure how I missed it 



Thanks for all the feedback I'm happy with the animation as it stands now and in the future I may come back to it for even more polish.