AuthorTopic: Young woman sprite  (Read 19891 times)

Offline Imagician

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 31
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #10 on: March 19, 2014, 12:51:31 pm
One more thing – maybe you could try an make his forehead 1px higher, this way he looks somewhat... mentally challenged ;). Reminiscent of Schlitzie, a little bit. :D

Offline thebombsauce

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 35
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #11 on: March 19, 2014, 01:02:04 pm
I'll consider it, it should be easy to change later on if I feel its necessary, as it stands I think the line eye looks kind of cold and distant which fits what I'm doing better. That aside would you say I'd be safe to start animating these?

Offline Gil

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1543
  • Karma: +1/-0
  • Too square to be hip
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/475.htm
    • View Profile
    • My Portfolio

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #12 on: March 19, 2014, 06:13:11 pm
I like your version with the line instead of dots for the eyes. I think it works stylistically. I agree that the heads need to be larger, so 1 pixel of extra forehead would be preferred I think.

Offline thebombsauce

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 35
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #13 on: March 20, 2014, 05:41:16 am
Alright well heres where I'm going to really need some help, I tried to start animating a running animation but all the references I found have an isometric-ish idle sprite (like mine) that goes into flat 2d when running. However I really like the idle sprite so if anyone has a reference of that sort of sprite doing a proper running animation or a way to make my flat 2d version look better I would truly be grateful. Heres what I have so far I only animated one leg before I realized how much I dislike the look of the sprite so everything else is either static or not yet in existence.


Offline Imagician

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 31
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #14 on: March 20, 2014, 01:14:35 pm
haven't got much time right now, so just a short text ;)

after reading your text, i'm not exactly sure if you'd rather create your walk ani as a straight profile or slightly towards the viewer, as in your idle stance.

however it may be, i'd suggest you try not to create each limb's animation separately, but as a whole. looking only at a moving leg, it's hard to tell if it's gonna work out good or not.

i would try to go from animating a rough version of the full body, to refining the details after that. one way to do it (that's how i do it sometimes) is (if you have layers in your software), you create a separate layer for let's say, the head, the torso, one for each hand, one for each foot (not connected to the body with limbs yet). for a starting position of these body elements you can put your idle stance as a ref underneath. then you do a frame by frame ani of the unconnected elements (which would result in something looking like Rayman). once you're happy with how this animation looks, you try and add the limbs and neck etc. in between for each frame.

but of course, that's just one possibility.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2014, 03:47:16 pm by Imagician »

Offline Imagician

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 31
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #15 on: March 20, 2014, 01:33:56 pm
to illustrate what i was talking about, here's from a very simple 4-frame (that's really kinda minimum*; 8 would be better) tiger run animation I created recently:

(* for certain styles, 3 or even 2 frames is also possible, of course)

i created something like an idle stance first, then cut the body elements into seperate layers. looked like this:



Then I created frame by frame and moved the layers a bit on each step, and so on.

after that was finished, I made a copy of the elements so each frame would have their own for me to freely modify (not always neccessary), and added some connection stuff here and there (layers looked pretty messy after that, not shown here :D)



resulting animation:


« Last Edit: March 20, 2014, 01:55:12 pm by Imagician »

Offline Imagician

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 31
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #16 on: March 21, 2014, 09:45:20 am
another thing you can try is "rotoscoping" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping). some would consider this kind of tracing as a violation of their pixel artists ethic probably, though. but I personally don't view it this strict.

here's for some reference, feel free to find more. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=walking%20reference&sm=3

looking forward to your work ;)

Offline thebombsauce

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 35
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #17 on: March 22, 2014, 06:32:33 am
Thank you very much for all of these references and the encouraging words! Here is what I have thus far, I'm aware the head needs to bob, hair needs to move and the body needs to rotate but those are very complex and I would like to get the basic limb stuff as good as I can get it, as usual any criticisms you all have

Offline Imagician

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 31
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #18 on: March 22, 2014, 02:28:22 pm
that's good progress from what you showed last time (the moving leg).  :y:

I think what I'm missing most here, is something you didn't exactly mention: an up-and-down motion of the torso (i.e. the big center chunk). alas, since you already did the limbs (arms and legs), repositioning the trunk they connect to, means redoing them.

my suggestion would be trying the following things in this order:

  • moving the torso up and down (with head stiffly connected for starters) (here's a ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiS0g04BHrg, where the up-and-down motion is quite strong, since she's running)
  • when you're happy with that, try the rotation (maybe even twisting) of the torso that you mentioned (I think, 1px towards each side would be enough here)
  • when you consider this done, redo the limbs, as the might not connect to the torso correctly anymore
  • head bouncing and details, like hair moving, if you feel so inclined...

that's of course just a suggestion, go and see if it works for you this way.

Offline thebombsauce

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 35
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Young woman sprite

Reply #19 on: March 22, 2014, 10:18:26 pm
alright i took all of your thoughts into consideration and have ended up with this, I'm starting to like the look of it but I still think it needs work