[C+C][WIP][UPDATE 6] Action RPG Character + Animations - Idle, Walk, Run

[CodeCriminal]

[SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES]

Hey guys, long time no speak!
So I have been playing Zenonia quite a bit recently on my android phone, and the pixel art has inspired me to do a little something similar.
Not much but here is what I have done with this inspiration:




Ok these are nothing serious, but i would like to gain some sort of self improvement out of this so thats why I am posting them here.
Ill talk about the character first, basically I am pretty happy with the hair, though not too sure if the forward and side match well, I always have difficulty with this, especially with spiky/wild hair. To me the clothes are boring, and im not sure whether that is just because of the design or that my pixel pushing skills have failed me, any suggestions? If you wondering why there are three sets of the "same thing" I was trying get the character to look as though he were being viewed from a more top down perspective by squashing parts of him, ofcourse this did not work, instead it just made him somewhat smaller.

The potions and text stuff, meh im happy there. Though I would like to hear your thoughts

Thanks


UPDATE 1: Minor edit of the trousers (english) and added an upward facing version (though it looks kind of awkward, any suggestions?), next i think ill animate them.. animating is hard work..  


UPDATE 2: Ok, so as I had said, I was not happy with the characters design in terms of clothes etc, so I completely re-did it using the base outline of course, this design I am happy with to an extent. I also did a little experimenting with colour (look at the far right image compared to the far left). Im considering keeping the scarf as it is quiet a nice feature compared to a plain set of clothes and makes the character seem more interesting to look at. Any suggestions for improvements? How is readability for you? Any comment really would be greatly appreciated.


UPDATE 3: So here are the "final" versions for each direction, pretty happy with them, especially the far left one. Though the far right one I am least happy with but its looking ok (it was worse than it is now).. I see I havent recieved any comments at all, and it has been a couple days now, perhaps because there isnt much here to comment on.. Anyway, ill be working on the running/walking animations soon now that I have these out the way and I am pretty sure they are going to be torn to shreads when i upload .

[CodeCriminal]

I feel as though this deserves a little bump, I have started work on the animating the little dude, here is a south facing walk cycle, if you notice the arm movement being too linear, fear not I am on the case.
though anything else you could suggest, as always I would like to hear it.


(hopes for a possible edit to the hair to make its animation a bit smoother, though no AA on the outline as this will not bode well in game).
Thanks again.

PS: South facing running animation should be up next, should be just a quick edit of the walk cycle, once I have the arms sorted.

EDIT: Somewhat WIP run cycle, atleast its readable.. (to me anyway..) let me know what you guys thing... starting to lose hope.. 300+ views and comments? is it really that insignificant?

[CodeCriminal]

....

  Sorry, I went to edit the post, not quote it..

[Olothontor]

Everything looks great so far, although some reference as to the backdrop that the character will be on will help with color critique; after all, part of the visibility is based on what's framing the sprites.

The running animation looks a lot like he's punching the air in front of him. The walking animation looks great, if a tiny bit choppy.

[Fickludd]

The walking animation looks good, but I think the running animation is going slightly too fast?

With the colors I thought the update two colors are the best. The scarf is a good idea, but having it in pure white takes focus from the face which I think you want to avoid. In update 3 I think the legs might be too dark, though this depends heavily on the world he will be placed in as Olothontor says. If he's going into dark places like caves or dungeons (not very unlikely heh?) it might get hard to distinguish his legs. 

[CodeCriminal]

Thanks for the comments+crits, so I spent a while trying to correct the air punching problem and I think I got it, let me know what you think (also reworked the walking animation a little, I think its better... ).


As for a background/tileset to place the character on, I have yet to make one (though I have tried and was not pleased with the results so i deleted it), I want to go for a light hearted visual style similar to the pokemon/zelda games but perhaps a little less cute.
When I tried to create tiles with the style in mind I had problems with the characters clothing contrasting the background to much and it did not look very good. When i revisit the tiles/backgrounds ill upload a demonstration if I still cannot figure out how
to create a suitable background for the sprite.

Sorry about the speed of the animations, Im using an online gif creator and it doesnt allow much precision in terms of fps.

Thank you

UPDATE 6:
Just a another quick update, I completed an idle animation, though its not exactly the animation I was going for (wanted something with a bit more attitude) its still ok, I've also found a piece of software to create to create GIF animations for me instead of having to upload to that site, its called Beneton Movie GIF and I am sure its pretty unheard of.. Anyway, it does the job, here are the results.



Also heres a look at all 3 animations compiled into one continuous loop:



I think my next post will feature the other 2 directions east/west and north animations for idle, walking and running, and after that perhaps I'll finally start workin on some attacking animations to fit the ARPG genre this thread proclaims.
Thanks again.

[Olothontor]

In the idle animation, with his arms swinging from side to side like that, he looks kinda like he's bopping to some music.

Get rid of that, though, and it'll look good. 

[CodeCriminal]

In the idle animation, with his arms swinging from side to side like that, he looks kinda like he's bopping to some music.

Get rid of that, though, and it'll look good. 

You dont find it charming? 
Yeah I know what you mean, but at that size its very very difficult for me to breathe life into an Idle state, with the arms moving it looks very static, I did try to subpixel a small amount of movement but that didnt go to well.. anything you might suggest i do with his arms to make him less "lala" and more "grr"?

[Olothontor]

I think it's worth trying just having them move up and down with his chest and shoulders. If that looks awkward to you, maybe a little bit of inward motion to show flexing? I'm not sure.

[CodeCriminal]

I think it's worth trying just having them move up and down with his chest and shoulders. If that looks awkward to you, maybe a little bit of inward motion to show flexing? I'm not sure.

Ok so i took your advice, and produce another animation, im not sure if this one is still "dancey" but I think its an improvement.
I also smoothed out the animation of the hair a by adding a 3rd frame of change instead of just alternating between the two.


Thanks again for all the comments it is helping