Thanks for your responses everybody!

He is based off a stegasaurus. Good job to the two who got it. High fives! All the boss-creatures in the game are based off dinosaurs... no particular reason, they're just fun to draw.

Conceit and B.O.B., I try to use a combination of sliding and redrawing; usually with idling/standing animations I slide stuff and then touch it up afterwards. I've never tried to animate something this big before, though, so large amounts of redrawing are a bit intimidating to me. I am making it really hard on myself with the design but I really want him to have a sort of Metal Slug-esque vibe. I'm just not as good an artist as those guys ;^p I'm hoping this will force me to develope my animation skills more.



Here's a small update: The water animation is crap - I'm gonna fix it; I just wanted to get it in there. I also intend to make his hand movements more subtle (some people suggested claws but they are a little out of place for the character - he's not really supposed to be a warrior, more of a mastermind. If you guys really think he needs claws though, I'm gonna have to redraw the fingers anyway so it wouldn't be out of my way. I liked the idea about the thrashing tail - I'm not sure if his tail will actually be that visible during gameplay (it may be offscreen) so I'm a little hesitant to spend the time and sweat making it fully animated. Though it would look very cool and it would be good practice for me. The more I think about the game design the more I think the rockets should probably be fired upwards... which means shoulders I guess. I love Conceit's idea about his skull opening up and firing something though so maybe I'll give him another attack like a laser or something... I just really wanna try animating that ;^)

A couple other sprites from the game (feel free to critique these, too!) No backgrounds yet - I'm going to be getting some help with those as I am very amateur when it comes to scenery.



The game is called Skeletroids, btw (which is the reason for the recurring skull/bones motif) As far as gameplay goes, the two biggest inspirations are Castlevania and Gunstar Heroes. Basically like Castlevania or Metroid in that it will be free-roaming and exploratory, but faster-paced with smaller worlds/areas and more agressive enemies. It'll also have some shmup parts as you can tell by the spacecraft ;^)