[WIP] Platformer sprite & Walking animation C+C

[Knighty]

Yo. I'm making some sprites for a game, and I want to know what you think. I tried making a walking animation and I think it looks pretty good, but there's some problems. I can't get the legs to look right. She's supposed to have baggy pants, but it looks wrong for some reason. Also I needs tips on how to shade the hair and pants better.


   

[Phlakes]

I think the problem is that the limbs never bend. All of them just swing back and forth, with the legs moving slightly up when stepping forward. I can see a bit of a bend in the legs, but with a sprite this small it should be more obvious.

[davis123]

The eyes and mouth look wide open like the person is scared to death or something. the left arm looks a little tense too.

I think the walking animation looks pretty good.

[blumunkee]

The walking animation does look great.

I would move the rear leg forward a pixel during the back step. Looks like too much of a stretch for comfortable walk.

[st0ven]

what blu monkee said, plus id personally like to see a bit more hair fluidity as well. it will really help sell the brisk-iness (not a word) of the walk cycle. the front bang action has some decent motion, but the back of the hair just stays flat.

one other thing. blue, green and red? all those colors in one sprite do not make the most appealing color combinaitons.

your blues in the shirt are so dark it makes it hard to distinguish any of its detail without having to zoom in once or perhaps even twice.

[Knighty]

I've been playing with the colours and shading, and I came up with this. I think it's a lot better.

[pistachio]

I've been playing with the colours and shading, and I came up with this. I think it's a lot better.

Looks... Meh, actually. It makes some of the banding in the sprite more obvious really. But the walking animation looks great.

IMO If I were you I'd go for more of a cel-shading approach here to make the shading more prominent. At this size, it's not very... readable. Try a slightly lower color count, 5 - 6-ish colors, maybe? Right now it looks rather higher.

Palette edit coming soon.

[Jad]

While I agree with Pistachio I just need to point out that upping the contrast was the entirely correct thing to do! Great job on figuring that out by yourself - I had to have people edit that down my throat before I realized I should care about contrast : D

[Knighty]

Is this better?

[pistachio]

Personally, I liked the color scheme of the first sprite better. (But that does look okay.) So I based this palette edit off of that instead.



Lowered palette by 3 colors, mostly getting rid of outline colors that you won't really notice unless you squint at it so much you won't be able to see it, and why would you want to do that anyway?

The hue-shifting on the green baggy pants was a bit odd--rather than going from warm to cool, it went from cool to warm. Switched it around. Also, added more contrast, not only on lighter colors but on darker colors too. It's pretty subtle though. One more thing, lowered the eyes by a pixel. That might not have been a good idea...