Small humanoid alien walking animation (WIP)

[Zizka]

I prefer without the head turning although both look quite good. I just don't think people move their head like this when they walk unless they're looking for something I guess.

Keep going! 

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Box pushing, preliminary version:



Any tips to make this better? I feel it's wrong in several aspects, but don't know where to start really.

[PixelPiledriver]

 
I like the cute, simple character.
But he looks heavily orthographic compared to the box.

However I feel you could get away with not changing what you have.
It's a challenging perspective to keep consistent.

The animations are looking decent.
I'll have something to say about them later.

[Dr D]

I feel like in the push animation, his arms are portraying that he's moving something large.

When you push a box, all your strength comes from your legs; adding some strain to them might not be a bad idea to show the object he's moving is probably heavy.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

That makes perfect sense PixelPiledriver. For some reason I thought it could not be pulled off to look right on this small canavas size, but yeah, you've illustrated perfectly how much better the design should and can look.

Anyway, not sure how much I can replicate this (especially animate), but I will try to make my work so far appear less orthographic. I got work to do this weekend.

Dr_D, that might be corrected by keeping the legs longer in front, I think.

Got a lot of stuff to try now...

EDIT:

"Axonometrizing" walking animation. It's a first step toward doing that for "box pushing" animation. Despite losing some of the "cuteness" and clarity, I think this is much better. Great advice Piledriver. Thanks again!

Still need to clean this up. As always, CC is appreciated.

[Willows]

Not to cop-out and leave just a blurb here, but http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=6968.0;nowap is a discussion on exactly box-pushing that happened priorly on pixelation, and is perhaps pertinent.

[Grimsane]

the foreground leg get's longer on contact. his proportions look better in that latest version

[Lachie Dazdarian]

You are right Grimsane! I forgot about foreshortening. I reduced the leg "contraction" from 2 to 1 pixel and it's much better now. Maybe I can experiment with no contraction at all. Thanks!

Anyway, replicated PixelPiledriver's design. Can't say I added much of myself in it, but it was such a good design I saw no other alternative to replicate it. But, will attempt to animate it this weekend. Expect a preliminary mess soon.

[hapiel]

I think the head moves way too much and is distracting this way. Edit:



Also, the back leg needs to go more up. There is one frame where he seems to be standing still. (frame 1). This pose does not exist in a walking pattern. Instead do the same as you did with frame 5 on the legs!

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Finally got back to doing this. Had so little time to do this for the past month and now, when I finally caught some break, I'm struggling with motivation as results of my pixel activities are poor. But I'm trying. I think I need to go back to tutorials again. Got lost in dealing with specifics of this characters.

Anyway, progress! Fixed the walking animation according to hapiel's suggestion:



Any more tips regarding this animation?

Tried to decipher the box pushing animation, and not sure what I got:



For some reason needed 9 frames. Maybe something can be done there.

Your thoughts? Salvageable? Any tips?

This perspective is hard.

I'm lost.