Assassin [C+C]

[Selassin]

 I'm making assassin as an enemy, I didn't fully animated it yet because I'm really annoyed by the colors atm, so I wanted to ask you guys how I can improve this.

 He have knifes in his belt, he's using katars. He's wearing leather gloves and boots and he's throwing knifes in the last two frames(which created individually in game).

[Agent K]

I don't think theres necessarily a problem with your colors, but more so with the way u use light to define your characters features.  With this few colors you really have to strech the use of every one.  I did an edit and mine didn't end up as blocky (dunno if u wanted it blocky with sort of an adventure time feel) but you can get a feel for how to focuson the light and the shadows it creates.  The only light source I could find was on the face at the far right edge, so that from that i used a light source from behind him, but hopefully this helps you get a better idea of what only a few colors can do so long as you focus on where the light is hitting.

As far as your animation, hopefully someone else can help, yours is already better than anything I could hope to create 

[YellowLime]

You shouldn't use "computer-generated" blurring, since it adds a whole bunch of colors, and it sticks out, this being pixelart.

The legs are very smoothly animated, but the torso is very static. The right leg's upper part is also static, you shouldn't be afraid of "moving" the crotch line a bit to the right when the right leg is completely extended forwards.

[Selassin]

@Agent K
 I don't think about shading for now, I'll decide that after I put this in game and see how the characters are effected by lights. And for your non-linear lines, I think it looks good, since there is so little frames, I think I'll try that and see which one is better.

@YellowLime
 Here's an updated version with some tweak upon what you said:

 Moved crotch line at first and last frame, removed blur effect, but I don't have much idea about how to animate torso, can you give me an example?

[YellowLime]

[Edit, 15 Dec 2013]
Selassin, if my tutorial from last week wasn't helpful enough, here's some walking animations I made, in which I apply what I told you last time :




[Original, 6 Dec 2013]

Somehow, I was too lazy to search for a good walk animation tutorial, but not enough to make you this mediocre attempt at one.
It addresses two problems I see with your animation: that the leg doesn't bend, and the perspective of the legs.


I forgot to add: in the 1st and 4th frames of the "right" version, the torso should be lower. In the 2nd and 3rd frames, the character should stand a bit taller.

[Selassin]

Thanks for your effort, first picture confused me at first, but I tried to bent right leg as much as I can. Aside from that, I applied torso movements from last animation. Your animation was really helpful.


This FF sprites explains the style I'm aiming for:

[Seiseki]

For the particular style, you'd need stronger colors, more contrast, larger eyes, larger hands, feet and a pose that isn't as strict and straight.
Basically the body of your sprites is like a shampoo bottle.
You need to draw with more flow and motion and not restrict yourself to straight shapes.

Also, animation wise, a walk relies heavily on the thighs, while your guy seems to be controlled by the lower part of the leg.
The thighs should carry the lower leg, because you basically can't move the lower leg forward without moving the thigh.

You have an entire sheet of sprites you can use as reference.
(although, those sprites are much higher resolution)

[Selassin]

 Yeah, I'm really bothered about colors, I'm reading some tutorials about that currently. I'm trying to improve my drawing to be able to draw natural poses too.

 I tried to make something like this pose:


 Another try for arm:

 But I can't draw arm properly. I'll try again.

[Selassin]

 Okay, yesterday I worked on assassin, tried to draw new one from scratch and I think it came out good:
(it's much faster in browser again. Added 0.02 second and it's fine now)
 There's no smoke bomb explosion effect yet, I'll look tuts around the web and posts here.

 Anyway, I'm waiting for C+C's!

[Zizka]

I don't really understand what he's doing in the first gif but the second one is so much better, congratulations!

(I'll leave the criticism to the pros).

[Selassin]

Oh sorry, I mentioned it at first post, he's hitting two times, drops smoke bomb, retreats(in game) and then throws two daggers.

[Jigsaw]

Just for the record those Final Fantasy sprites are all edits of sprites from the KOF/SNK vs Capcom/etc games for the Neo Geo Pocket. If you're looking for stylistic (and especially animation) reference, I suggest you study the actual original sprites.

[Selassin]

 I'm not gonna make rpg game, I'm making action game so it's fine. These sprites are perfect example of what kind of style I'm going for. You can think my aim like Street Fighter sprites in 32x32 px area.

[Zizka]

I think you should add a couple of frames for when he throws the smoke bomb on the ground. Why not add some smoke as well and make him disappear in it. You'd learn loads by doing the smoke animation.

[Selassin]

Update: Added smoke bomb explosion effect and 3 frames to assassin. Smoke bomb:


And in game, it'll look like this(but smoke bomb effects will be created as separate objects):


Unlike other explosion effects, I want smoke to stay for a while. I couldn't find anything about smoke bomb explosion, so I used this video as reference.