Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: TVboyCanti on October 22, 2009, 01:44:36 pm
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Hello there everyone, I am TVboyCanti, and this is my first post here at Pixelation forums. I have been practicing pixel art and traditional art for maybe a little under a year now, mostly doing sprites for a pokemon forum called Smogon. As my skill at pixel pushing has slowly increased over the months, I have become eager to try new styles of pixel art. I have browsed many pixel-art forums in search of new pixeling ideas, and upon discovering this forum, I was simply blown away at the professionalism and high level of critique that is given by the members of this forum.
Anyway, I am in the early stages of attempting to build a pokemon 2D fighter for the users at Smogon. I have no idea if I will finish this game or not, but it's mainly a motivational tool to help me churn out animations and keep me excited. Because I will be making this myself, am relatively inexperienced at spriting and have very little free time, I have decided to use very small sprites for this game, basically the smallest you can get without becoming icons. I already have several sprite outlines made, and a couple of sillouette animations, but this is my first finished animation. I started with something simple, and idle stance for a pokemon called Hitmonlee, that uses fast powerful kicks. As I said before, this is my first finished animation, and I know that it's probably awful, so I hope that you guys will use your vast knowledge and skills to rip this sprite a new one and show me what needs to be improved.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/Idleanimcolored.gif)
8 unique frames, 10 colors, 8 frames long.
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It's not that bad really. What I'm mainly missing is knees. Right now you just smoothly bend the legs and I feel some sort of knee action is in place. If you want to keep the legs a bit noodly without a specific knee, look at Disney shorts or Felix the cat cartoons. Their noodly legs are still the pinnacle of this sort of animation.
He looks slightly out of balance too, so try to get the standing leg a little more under his balance point. Street fighter has a few muay thai fighters which are closely related to hitmonlee's fighting technique. So if you want to look at sprite sheets, try to go for the muay thai attacks.
For now I think it might be best to keep trying without very advanced critique as I feel that your technique should work out itself over time. I can give help with animations if you're stuck somewhere, but I mainly suggest studying the Disney style, muay thai fights (especially axe kicks, which I think is close to Hitmonlee's jump kicks) and sprite sheets of street fighter games.
Ramon Dekkers' Axe kicks are famous
- a nice kick at 0:55
- slow motion axe kick at 1:27, the ones after that are nice spinning kicks
- Another nice one at 2:21
- Low kick at 2:25 (with another slowmo axe kick afterwards)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIHeyyLsBwU
Felix the cat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRtW-NBo5zg
Disney (watch the knees):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Wqd16qWfo
Steamboat Willie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RexXDDA8RoI
Adon from Street Fighter:
http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/adon-a.html
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That's a nice little sprite and animation. If there's one thing I'm really useless at, it's characters and character animation, however a couple of things instantly stood out at first glance.
Firstly, the legs. I'm not sure what the segmentation is supposed to be - whether it is wearing matching colour knee-pads or if its some kind of bandage-wrap, however on the right leg (his left) the bottom line seems to get left behind in the leg up/down motion. I feel the line needs to be altered (not just raised) for the upper position.
Secondly, the arms. The simple up down motion seems quite stiff and as if you've just moved the 'arms' layer of your sprite up and down. A little variation in the bend of the arm, or raising the rearmost hand an extra pixel would help offset the stiffness.
To double check myself and see if what I was trying to say worked I started a quick edit of it. However, after attempting to tweak the knee and arm, I noticed that some of the shading didn't seem very consistent. In particular the black outlines, so I moved these to fit better with your apparent lightsource given the majority of the shading. I also tested out using the white to add some extra highlight to the legs, though perhaps it is too much. I haven't altered the palette in any way, though I feel many of the shades are too similar and it would benefit from some palette tweaking.
Anyway.. this is only a quick edit and I'm really no good with characters so perhaps take my edit with a pinch of salt, but perhaps it will highlight a few things that could use attention, and I know there are many here who could produce a much finer edit than this one.
(http://www.miniwizardstudios.com/odds/pix/Idleanimcolored-z.gif)
-Z-
P.S. Welcome to Pixelation :)
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Thank you so much Gil for the references and Zoggles for pointing out my mistakes. The references were a big help with my other animations, especially the street fighter one. I didn't even realize that I was subconciously using a Muay Thai stance. I will post edits soon and maybe some new animations.
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The chamber is kinda low in both versions, it won't get that much power from that height. The leg should be in a more upside-down V form.
EDIT:
Here's a good reference.
(http://www.sports-party.com/martial_arts/test/kickforonty.JPG)
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UPDATE:
Idle:(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/Idleanim-4.gif)
Kick 1:(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/kickanim-1.gif)
Kick 2:(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_Highkickanim.gif)
Combo:(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_Kickcombo-2.gif)
Changed up the palette on the legs so they aren't so similar to the body, and also added the highlights to the legs ala Zoggles suggestion, although I added another highlight color instead of just using white, which brings the color count up to 15. Really makes the sprite pop like Zoggle said. The Muay Thai references were invaluable for making the wind up frames on the kicks.
The character is supposed to have noodle legs as was observed. There's only supposed to be a very ambiguous idea of where knees would be if the character actually had a proper leg structure. Actually, I guess I should just post the source picture (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/tr/0/0f/Hitmonlee.png). I also added a little bit of stretch to them in the kick animations to emphasize their noodlyness. I might add even another stretch frame later on.
I added in that long combo animation just to show how versatile these two animations are for the fast combos. Now to move on the Power Kicks.
Brod, the kicks aren't meant to come straight from the idle animation, but I guess you can see that now. But that reference will be very useful for future animations, so thank you very much. Is there a website that has more of those?
Please C+C!
Update: Added motion blur. Better? My first time doing motion blur, so please critique that too.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_Kickcomboblurred-1.gif)(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_KickFlurryanim.gif)
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_StretchKickanimation-1.gif)(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_Highstretchkickanimation.gif)
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Looking fine. It'd try one out now where he switches feet. The front foot comes down and the back foot comes from the back to the front.
Here's a Pradal Serey roundhouse, which is a great kick for a character like hitmonlee and it's again a Muay Thai style kick. It's actually more or less a variation on what brod shows (which is more a karate style kick).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdZ6DwBpsXg
The video has slow motion parts and animations
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Seems like the rest of the body isn't moving when he is kicking, is that on purpose? I forget how he kicks in the show. But anyway, to be correct, the body should be leaning into the kick, etc.
Not to mention the legs seems to be stretching a bit. (Again I don't remember the show too well.)
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Old trick I learned: If you want a lot of impact for an animation, don't actually put in the contact frame. I've never really tested it but it seems like it'd work. Just a thought. Beautiful animations- are you avoiding a punching animation?
More! :'(
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@Shrike I'm pretty sure Hitmonlee only kicks. :lol:
As a general rule, when martial artists kick, their hips rotate along with their legs to give the attack more force. Be very careful when creating martial art animations, for in every move, there is a lot of detail.
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CrazyMLC, the body isn't supposed to move other than the arm which moves for counter balancing the momentum of the kick. It's supposed to be like those rapid TKD kicks that you snap out really using only your core for power. The best example I could find was here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvPPssY7jDk), at 00:40. And yes, the legs are supposed to stretch, they are supposed to look elastic and rubbery (just a little).
Shrike, Hitmonlee is all about the kicks, so if I threw a punch in there it would probably ruin the character. That's actually why I chose this character first, I'll do punches later with the next character.
Anyway, here is a WIP after several hours of work. C+C is very welcome
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/PowerKick-4.gif)
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I'm digging this so far! I've always been kinda fascinated by Hitmonlee's design. Anyway, the only thing I'd like to see more of (even if the cartoon didn't do it, as I looked up references before critiquing) is more upper body movement. The more force you put into a kick, the more your upper body will respond. That should be independent of whether your legs are elastic or not.
Here's an okay example. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0BhhmNyFr4)
Note how, when his leg is fully extended during the side kick, the torso leans back quite far. The more extreme examples I found, with people kicking as hard as they can, ended up with the torso pretty much horizontal. Especially true for the high side kick (http://tkdmaster.com/images/HighSideKick.jpg). I don't know why anyone would need to bring their foot up THAT high, unless they're fighting a giant, but oh well. Keep up the good job!
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I think I recall hitmonlee leaning back a bit the whole time he did his flurry of kicks, no?
I actually have the show... I should watch it and find out. >_<
Well, the axe kick seems very stiff in how the leg moves, especially for having 'elastic' legs. :)
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I think I recall hitmonlee leaning back a bit the whole time he did his flurry of kicks, no?
I actually have the show... I should watch it and find out. >_<
Well, the axe kick seems very stiff in how the leg moves, especially for having 'elastic' legs. :)
Well, yes he does lean back for that animation, I thought you meant the body should move even more than that. I pretty much have him leaning back for all of those kicks except for the new axe kick, so what did you mean the body should move more? I can't really think of a way to make Hitmonlee lean farther back without stretching his torso in a wierd way.
And if you have any ideas for how to improve the axe kick and make the legs look elastic, I would love to hear them, it's why I posted it before I started to color it.
Rox, I watched the video you showed and it's great as a reference tool. But... his arms really don't move that much in the video, just like all the other TKD videos that I watched while making this animation. They are bent up into his chest through pretty much the whole kick, just as my sprites arms stay bent, only changing their postion relative to the body itself.
I really appreciate all the crit, and I feel close minded in that I'm having a hard time incorporating it. I think maybe an edit (even just a 1-frame outline edit) would be really helpful for me to see what u guys are trying to get across to me.
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(http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/dhalsim-punch.gif)
That might be helpful for the extending kicks. This is a punch, but similar way of animating. Basically, you need more strength and speed.
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I think the blurred raise of the foot really kills the flow of it. All focus of power and speed should be on the kick itself, or else it steals attention away from the sheer power you're trying to portray.
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Rox, I watched the video you showed and it's great as a reference tool. But... his arms really don't move that much in the video, just like all the other TKD videos that I watched while making this animation. They are bent up into his chest through pretty much the whole kick, just as my sprites arms stay bent, only changing their postion relative to the body itself.
Heh, good. I wasn't talking about the arms, I was talking about the entire upper body, waist up. Don't be afraid to redraw a bunch of frames for something as epic as a powerful high kick! Make him lean back nice and far, that'll give it some oomph.
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Minor Update. Changed the Stretching Kicks to have more speed and oomph ala Gil's example. Also changed the palette again and added a little bit of saturation to the brown because I thought it looked a bit washed out for a pokemon.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/StretchKickanimation.gif)(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/Highstretchkickanimation-1.gif)
Here is that Heel Drop animation again but with a different ending that will make it easier to chain other attacks to it. Uses the old palette but I'll fix that when I color it.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_PowerKick.gif)
I'll be out of the house all day for Halloween so I'll post this too. This is as far as I've gotten on a roundhouse kick. Think it needs one more tween to be truly smooth. Might also add an animation for the kick to come all the way around. Edit: added in that tween, amazing the difference it makes.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/th_Roundhouse.gif)>>>>with extra tween>>>>(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/Roundhouse-1.gif)
My real problem now is this guy. I've spent hours working on him but he doesn't look quite right to me. Here's the official sprite (http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/c/c7/Spr_4d_257_m.png) that it's based on.
(http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a301/mvidmaster/IdleA8colored-3.png)
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if you added some right legged kicks for the more powerful ones it would make it look much more dynamic