[WIP] [C+C] male and female character sprite

[lioran]

Hello I started doing pixel art a few months ago.
I'm currently working on a game where you can select gender
and all type of armor look different
so I drew the characters animation and i'm trying to make sure they are fully done and nice looking before i draw any armor on them and the animation for it.

default sprite (i didn't think this needed a nudity tag but tell me if i was wrong.)



an exemple I tried of some heavy armor.


it happen pretty often that i can tell whats wrong but i just don't know how to fix it
so let me know what you think should be different.

EDIT: I made some change on the female one


on a side note the hair is actually a separate sprite
since there will be different hair style

EDIT 2:I made some more change i made the bottom part slighty higher
not sure much better that is though


EDIT 3: i changed the posture and exagerated the movement a little more
i think thats starting to look better


EDIT 4: i think i got it right
with the armor on it also look pretty nice
lowered the palette scheme alot too... i think it look better that way

[PypeBros]

- arms are abnormally short
- running with legs always bent and touching ground with a vertical leg looks off
- feet should describe a elliptic move more than a square/rectangular move

I like the movement of the dress, on the other hand. It might work better if flowing in the other direction, though.
Good job on the hair movement, too, but I think you should avoid single-pixel sub-threads and focus on a single hair mass at this resolution. Also, take care of "blinking pixels" that do not bring that much move and introduce temporal noise in the animation. Sub-pixel animation without affecting the silhouette of the character is usually preferred.

There is clear improvement of the animation speed from edit1 to edit4, imho.

[ErekT]

No time for an edit right now, but I can talk a bit about the things I notice.

Like Pypebros says, the arms are too short. Try putting your elbows to your sides and see where they end up. Almost down at the bottom of the ribcage. There is a problem with the arm motion but I don't really know how to put it into words Basically when running, arms flail back and forth to help balance and should "mirror" the leg motion better.

The basic motion of the legs running looks right but they don't extend in a way that would propel the characters forward properly. Think of each step as a small leap where the leg on the ground "shoots" the character forward. In other words, the carrying leg should extend further back right before it leaves the ground.

The characters shooting their tits out while running looks strained and unnatural. Instead of arching backwards, maybe straighten the back more?

[lioran]

I tried to flail motion
looks better also tried to make the arms look longer
any more then this and it start looking arkward
they were indeed a little too short on the initial frame but during the running animation not so much personnaly
right now i'm mainly focusing on fixing the running animation

Also when you say the arm should mirror the leg motion
do you mean, if the right leg is to the front so should the right arm be?

[ErekT]

Okay, did an edit to show what I mean. It's best to not shade your sprite until you got the silhouette shape right. Saves you having to redo it all over again when you tweak the motion. You don't need all them colors for a sprite this size. Same goes for all the detail shading. Clarity is much more important than detail.

By the way I saw your post in the off-topic. I recommend to not lean too hard on the castlevania style. The Alucard sprite is very cool, but his running motion looks like he's wading through water imo.

[lioran]

well you tried what i tried... and that's to make the arm longer and to me that looks too long i don't know why
also that's not the perspective i'm going for(90 degrees)
i'm more going for 60-70 degree angle

[Ymedron]

Maybe it looks that way because you have convinced yourself that your version looks fine? Psychology is a strange thing like that.

However, regardless of whatever 'errors' you perceive in ErekT's sprite, you should follow the advice rather than brushing them off. (aka avoid shading until the animation and proportion are correct)


By mirroring he meant that when the right leg is to the front, the left arm is also to the front. Walking has the same kind of motion, though understated. Watch people walking, running or jogging and note how they move their arms and legs. (also, if you can, note how long their bodyparts are in proportion with one another.)

[lioran]

well I wouldn't really say that i'm convinced that mine is better ... more like more nostalgic
mine look more video gamish and his look more like the kind of movement you see in real life which is not what i'm aiming for as absurd as that sound. real life running has no style . i'm going to style.

doing the primitive shape takes a long time for me, my drawing gets alot faster when im doing the shaping
i was drawing when i was a kid and i was never able to use the technique of shape drawing first and working with that
that's how i always drew

By mirroring he meant that when the right leg is to the front, the left arm is also to the front. Walking has the same kind of motion, though understated. Watch people walking, running or jogging and note how they move their arms and legs. (also, if you can, note how long their bodyparts are in proportion with one another.)

arms are always the opposites of the legs no matter what video i look at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx6x2cD6Y8Q#t=40s
left foot front - left leg back

[Dr D]

What I believe ErekT meant by 'mirroring' was not about left arm being forward when left foot is back (etc. Your sprite is already correct in terms of that), but more in terms of the swinging motion .. which you already tried to address. I'm not exactly sure what was wrong with it seeing as I don't know much about animation, but hopefully he can clarify.

And I'm going to reiterate that it is important to rough-in your frames first and get the animation parts smoothed out first, and then add details later or you run into bigger problems like you are now, with the arm being too short for example. (Which it is) Don't throw aside drawing from life if you want to improve. That's what everything is based off after all. Do you think the first person to draw a running cycle in a video game wasn't trying to imitate real life somehow?

I understand you want style, but I don't think you should forego style for an unrealistic animation. At least correct it first, and then add some flare after.

I also agree that your characters look oddly hunched over right now.

[Helm]

Erekt's edit is so much better that it's baffling to read your replies. I understand what you're saying but you should ask your audience for this game perhaps if they find your sprite more stylish and Erekts more realistic to its detriment because for me it's not even going enough in the direction of correct proportions / movement, it should go even further.

That Castlevania sprite seems to have messed up a lot of people trying to recreate it, heh. It's really not a very good walkcycle to model on, though it's charming.