Little samurai guy.. C/c

[Chaos Tayoko]

I miss Pixels   
SO! instead of moping around, I want to start learning again! its been about a year since I last pixeled And i can't wait to get slapped around by the pros again about how Pixel-blind I am. I started playing Ragnarok Online and well, I noticed all their playable and Npcs where all pixel art. So a few months passed and i decided to play around with Gravities Style of Pixel. I started out making Edits of player character classes and mixing them with monsters, MUHAHAH that was loads of fun. Then I went on to make headgears resembling monsters. Of course, I could only go so far... so i quit the game, and playing around in someone else's sandbox. I wanted to make my own stuff. But unfortunately I can't...I seems to completely suck at making super small stuff, without some kind of reference, or body structure. How can I fix this?  Alright anyway, here is some of my Gravity style emulation, my custom headgears. On the -right- you'll see the in-game monster, and on the
-left- my headgear. These are in chronological order.

Dark Lord Mask
Odium Mask
Orc Lord

This isn't my current problem, just something for you guys to look at. Right now i want to learn how to make tiny action packed sprites.
I was looking around for something to base my sprite of, and I found these.

Arn't they cute?  The Artist who made them is unknown, the I found them here

And this is where it begins, I want to make my own creations, 100% without any influence, without any models, just 100% from me.  Well anyway, this is what I made:

< Old || New>



Gah, sorry for the white background.
1. Run: I tried to go for the whole ninja thing but, there is something wrong with it...but I can't point out what.. His hands? feet? It sucks? Idk and its driving me insane. I addressed the flashing jacket, and jittery hand movement. Aswell as the jumping belt buckle.
2. Kick: BIG Perspective Issue(soon to be worked on.)....I love the outcome, with the cool exaggerated foot, BUT the old problem persisted, I had to look at these Rock lee sprites. And also, the way his head looks from the side...its fugly.
3. Punch: BIG Perspective Issue(Being remade as we speak.)OMG I hate this animation, its so static...I can't think of a way to make his body move.    Even though I like the exaggerated fist, but still...it looks like crap. OMG, I just noticed his belt jumps! I'm such a newb.

What about the colors? I remember someone one advised me to use super bright colors for sprites, because it makes them pop from the game. But I know the 3 skin colors might need tweaking, but I just don't know how. So, now its time for you guys to lay down the law. I will do my best to understand your C/c and learn from it.

I love you gais. 

[Sherman Gill]

Okay, there are no 'laws', really, besides don't use blurry brush tools. Simply things that look good and look bad.

That said,

I remember someone one advised me to use super bright colors for sprites, because it makes them pop from the game.

Hehe, there are a lot of ways to make things stand out, but try not to take saturation to the extreme. The colors on your sprites are on the higher-end (That is, they're pretty good as they are, and don't increase it) of the tolerable saturation bar for me, but it's a matter of opinion.

Now, on a first glance, I'd say the thing wrong with your run cycle is that it looks like his right (our left) leg doesn't go out as far as the left.

I'll be back with something more indepth later

[PypeBros]

i like your punch/kick animations, especially how i get the feeling that that little dude is trying to hit me.

but then, i suppose he should be punching/kicking something that is in front of him, not me. Maybe that might require the attack to use a different perspective ... This way, he'd rather be a "super punch out" hero than a RPG hero.

[Chaos Tayoko]

Now, on a first glance, I'd say the thing wrong with your run cycle is that it looks like his right (our left) leg doesn't go out as far as the left.

That could be it, Instead of being lazy and copy/paste and flip, I'll do another original frame with a harder step. This should result in a less jerky hand movement too.

but then, i suppose he should be punching/kicking something that is in front of him, not me.

HOMG  How could i miss this? I is probably the -main- problem. I get to work reconstructing it right away.

I'll be back with something more indepth later

I -will- be waiting. Its so great to come back and learn so much. You guys are awesome².

[ndchristie]

you can try playing with perspectives to add motion and straighten out your collisions:

[Dusty]

The running animation looks like a skip... or something. It's hard to say exactly, but it's unbalanced. It looks like he's running with a limp... like one leg just isn't fully functioning.
Someone already addressed the problem with the punch animation... but I say keep it for a celebration move. It looks like he's throwing his fist up in the air going, "YEAAAAAH!".

[Chaos Tayoko]

Oh wow, something Like this would be hawt. Face on  - to- top down. It would involve be remaking everything, but thats fine. But if I do that, how would that effect the surrounding's? Like would be building be top down? Or face on?

[ndchristie]

oh, i would say they would follow the same perspective of the standing steady sprites.  The purpose of this is to change the angle of the characters, not the camera.

[Sherman Gill]

Hehe, my critique of the legs here was more true then I thought. I assumed it was just how fast it was moving and that they did actually move the same distance, but they don't, which is what is causing most of the problems here.
Mine > < Yours
First, an even number of frames are pretty much necessary for this animation. When you have three frames it's gonna look weird no matter what.
If you aren't aiming for a limping character, you need consistent motion on both sides, where both the arms and both the legs move the exact same distance.
In my edit I removed the highlights on the pulled-back feet because they were making the leg movement ambiguous and you couldn't tell which one was down. I also made the belt kind of gyrate instead of jump around.
I must stress how the limbs of a person running move the same amount.

The kick animation is pretty good, and most of the problems with it were pointed out by ze' others.
However, both this and the punch animation use motion trails in strange ways: The motion trails should only be where the moving object (In this case feet and hands) have been, and your trails deviate from that path, like in the punch animation where the trail ends above the eyes of the character when the fist is never that high up.
I'd also remove the treads from the bottom of the boot, since it makes it look kind of like a glove.

It seems you're aware that more of his body should be moving in the punch animation, so I'll skip that for now.

[Chaos Tayoko]

You bring up a very valid points, frame numbers, symmetrical movements, and his feet. The edit was unbelievable! I will study it, and try to fix it on my own. But please, If you get the time, i'd like for you to go in depth on all the animations. I already have an idea how to fix the punching, but not the kick.

[thedaemon]

I'm at work so I can't frame by frame crit your animations but here's what I noticed.

Kick: When his foot goes into the air at the most extreme he is off balance. Move his body to his left. Also you have him looking to his right before he kick, a rule of fighting is that you never take your eyes off of your opponent. It also looks like he would be doing a side kick but you have him faced a bit too forward. Maybe its just cause he's so tiny.

Punch: You have his left hand which is lower, punching higher than this right hand. I would reverse the extremes of the punches. The motion blur is cool and all but I think you should add it last. You should also lean the character into each punch. When he punches with his left lean him to the right, and vice versa.

I hope this advice helps. If you need any more explanation I will glady help when I get home and have Promotion to work with.

[AdamTierney]

Samurai is very cute, I like the ideas behind the animations. What I would adjust is:

1) Run: Make his left arm bob less (like his right arm), spread the feet out from his center point a little so they don't touch as much. With how cutesy his design is, you can probably show the whole underside of each foot wen it swings up. Also animate a hair bob.
2) Punch: Very cute anim. When he turns to the side before striking, make his left foot less of a full sideview - it's a bit jarring. The position his left foot ends up in is also a bit up and high. Try moving it down 1 pixel and in 1-2 pixels. I'd get rid of the swoop art on the foot, as well as his left fist, leaving it only on the right fist. A little trick if you add even more UMPH! to the punch - in the frame where it freezes and is big now, replace that first with one even bigger (maybe 1 pixel out on all sides), then on the next frame pull it back to the fist you have now. That'll give it a springy, super-strong swing, enough that the fist actually recoils a little.
3) Double punch: Get rid of the swooshes (too much for a weaker punch) and spin the body a little with each punch. Give him a unique pose per fist, even if the differences between each pose are minimal. This whill make the whole thing feel snappier.

Cheers,

Adam

[Chaos Tayoko]

Alright, I made an edit to my Run. On top of fixing the obvious problems, I got rid the the "flashing jacket" .

< Old || New>

[Chaos Tayoko]

Having a Little troble with the side view? Any tips?.

No, I didn't forget about fixing the punch/kick.... I worked on them for too long, I need a change before i can go back to them.

[Sherman Gill]

You could probably move his arm a pixel closer to the right.
Just a second...
MeinYous
Quick 10 min edit.
Mostly things that are dependent on personal preference.
I gave him a more neutral stance and removed the outline between his sleeve and jacket.
I also made his nose more prominent.

Beyond that, though, I think somethings wrong with his feet, but I have no honest idea what and my edit looks just as awkward.

[Chaos Tayoko]

Thanks Sherman, that gave me an idea how to fix it, how does this look:

<Old || New>

[Chaos Tayoko]

well here is my shot at ficing the perspective issue. 



Well, the pose too static, will i'll keep trying to make something more exciting.

[Jad]

Is he punching or standing still? He looks totally dynamic, but the neck and head looks static and kind of onconfortably bent forward.

I'm confused