Platformer character

[Redshrike]

I recently drew this character based sort of loosely on a drawing that my brother did.  It's been a long, long time since I did anything sidescrollerish, especially running (this is probably my best running animation ever...).  Anyway, I could probably use crits on the general design, and definitely on the running.  It just looks...wrong, somehow, but I'm not exactly sure why.


Thanks guys!

[Gil]

When you're running, your whole body move up and down. Move the first and third frame up a few pixels.

[Jad]

I had to really stare at him to get how his hat worked. The silhouette is all crazy-like, and makes no sense at first glance.

Like Gil said, I think a slight bounce/bob would help much more than his constant face turning. It doesn't make a lot of sense either. It would make more sense for a more exaggerated cartoony run, but this isn't that, so I'd say drop it.

[r1k]

the hat just isnt making sense to me, I didnt even recognize it was a hat before I read Jad's post.  There just seems to be some kind of perspective issue with it, like the hat is viewed slightly from above, but the body seems to be viewed perfectly from the side, so the hat doesnt seem to fit in to me.

[Redshrike]

Thanks for the great comments guys!  Here's a version with bounce and less extreme headturnage.  I think it looks much better.

The hat is, indeed, rather strange.  It's lower on one side than the other, kinda like this one.  Except not a woman's hat.  I'm not really sure how to make it less ambiguous; I think the rather poor rotation compounds the problem.

[zez]

Maybe make the middle bit (the round part) a bit taller? Also you could try enlarging the nearest bit.