I don't think you're going to get that looking good at this scale without adding animations for running to the side, or even better, 8-directional animations (with mirroring, that's 5 different animations). Why should the character only have two running animations?

well I could do 3 animations up down and right. Or I could do 2 at somewhere around 45 degrees. like the top right or bottom right. I am just trying to reduce the amount of work required to add content.

hello all. its been a long time since I have posted here. This is however my first real attempt at an animation. I am trying to learn to do pixel art as I have never really done it before.

here is my animation.



I personally like the motion of his arm and the gun. However his lower body looks silly to me. and the smoke trail is a little silly too XD

I just want to know how I can improve myself.

2 main issues:
 - The sprite doesn't suit the camera perspective. The camera is overhead a bit but the sprite is drawn front on as if its a 2D platformer.
 - Its better to render your sprites in "billboard" mode which bascially means it gets rotated to face exactly at the camera at all times. When you angle sprites the way you're doing it now it looks "paper-thin" which ruins the illusion.

If you're going to mix 2D sprites in 3D environments consider a fixed perspective so your sprites don't look all weird.
An example of all this being done properly is in Pokemon Platinum (I think thats it).
I haven't actually played the games but I did find it interesting how they did it.
Can only find crappy screenshots:
http://www.hookedgamers.com/images/418/pokemon_platinum/screenshot_nds_pokemon_platinum005.jpg
http://joveeno.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/floaroma.png
http://i11a.3djuegos.com/juegos/3204/pokemon_platinum/fotos/analisis/pokemon_platinum-775548.jpg

interestingly enough the sprites are on a billboard which is exactly straight up and down... they just are not rotated to face the camera. I get that same response from everyone though.. Perhaps its an illusion? An issue nonetheless. I was hoping for feedback on the actual sprite itself but am glad for this feedback as well!... I do feel the skin tone is off... also the bottom portion of the dress I cant get quite right in all 8 directions.

Thanks for the response! I will try and update this topic when I am off of work with a fixed perspective!

Hello everyone!

I am a self proclaimed indie video game developer who ran into a problem... I can code quite well but I am very bad at pixel art. So I went on a quest online to find a forum that may be able to help me better my pixel art abilities. That is how I ended up here.

My games aesthetic is inspired by games such as Grain War(unreleased)http://www.indiedb.com/games/grain-war and Hyper Light Drifter(unreleased?) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1661802484/hyper-light-drifter

I adore the way the pixels are placed so perfectly that it looks crisp. It just looks good to me.

My game is a shooter/beat em up game. Something I came across by accident is instead of using an 8 directional sprite I can make a 4 directional sprite which moves diagonally and it(IMO) looks more natural when moving in 8 directions. I think Nuclear throne used this approach.

Here is what I have so far. I have not really decided on what the head will look like for the character however I can tell you it wont be solid sky blue.



Tree sprite. I have no idea how to approach the leaves =\


character. I want to get rid of the cape but when I do I always end up with a strange looking character... I will make an attempt later and post it so you can see. for now this is what the character looks like.


This is my first real attempt at pixel art. Please hit me with what you got! I wont be offended I just want to get better so I can finish my game!

ps. forgot the gun shadow ^ haha!