Franko

[Kcilc]

Pixelation, meet Franko.

Still

Punch
    (v2.)
Run


I'm relatively satisfied with the running animation. I'm sure there's a lot of room for improvement. The punch animation, however, still feels very wrong; and after tweaking the motion into the wee hours of the night, I'll present it to you guys.

[Cage]

Hey, that's a nice sprite, I like the clean and very readable style.

While running certainly works, I think the dynamics in the punch animation are in the reverse - it seems that the character uses more force for pulling his hand back than for the actual punch. At least it looks like this to me.

[r1k]

I think when you pull your arm back after punching you bend your elbow.  Right now his arm looks like rubber; like hes stretching it foreward and then it snaps back once it cant stretch any further.

[Kcilc]

Hmm...okay, thanks! I tried minimizing the amount of stretched arm frames, slowed down the recovery, and bent his arm.



It's looking better! 

[rikfuzz]

Looks great!  Nice and cartoony movement. 

One stylistic approach would be to enlarge the size of the fist on the action frames.  Alex Kidd and Kangaroo sort of did this, and loads of old cartoons like Popeye and Tom and Jerry.  Think it works great for sprites especially though, shows more change, and gives a bit of an idea of hit-area.  Usually swords have some huge smear that works like this, the little fist seems a bit fiddly in comparison.

Obviously it might not match up with the style you're aiming for, but you might be surprised if you try it out, and you can adjust the exaggeration to whatever suits. 

Not sure if this technique has a name, but I'm sure PixelPiledriver re will know if he's reading! 

[r1k]

IF these are for a game, then I find the enlarge fist technique is really helpful in that it gives the attack more range.  Nothing more annoying than playing a game where you have to stand right next to an enemy to attack it.

The new punch is looking better though.

[Ymedron]

Another game that has the fist/leg enlargement to very obvious degree is Battletoads.
Here is a spritesheet of the green frog, maybe it'll help? http://spriters-resource.com/nes/battletoads/battletoads.gif

[Kcilc]

Haha, well I guess my timid attempt at enlargement wasn't as obvious as I thought!



I'm not sure if I overshot it, but it would definitely be more playable. My plan isn't to turn this into an actual game, but I'm trying to design everything as though it was for one.