Young woman sprite

[Imagician]

sorry, but it looks like you didn't move her torso up and down, but instead back and forth. only thing that moves and and down is the end of her jacket, making it look like it's getting magically longer and shorter.

besides, the x-position of the torso should stay in place, otherwise when implemented into a game it will look like the character is not running with a steady speed, but somehow jerking forward.

[Imagician]

i strongly suggest you take another close look at refs, e.g. from the youtube links i provided.

her legs are basically just sliding back and forth, alternatingly. i downloaded your previous gif to play around with the torso. in doing so, i tried to find the points where either foot hits the ground, and it's really kind hard to tell, because this is not really happening.

[thebombsauce]

Yeah I agree that I need to redo the legs they are the worst part, but how exactly do you move the torso up and down without extending its size? wouldnt it just disconnect from the rest of the sprite?

[Imagician]

so, here's a very basic edit i did. still many things to fix. just to show what i was talking about:

• body is lowest when foot hits the ground (or, depeding on the walking style, there's some "follow through", see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation)
• body is highest in the middle between the points when it's the lowest, when you pushed yourself up from the ground
• head bouncing is basically a kind of "follow through", too. so it bounces down e.g. 1 frame after the torso was lowest

another thing i didn't point out before is that her crotch is strangely low, and the legs start to bend away even lower. normally they would extend from the waist, but in the woman's sprite they extend from somewhere below the crotch.

[Imagician]

Yeah I agree that I need to redo the legs they are the worst part, but how exactly do you move the torso up and down without extending its size? wouldnt it just disconnect from the rest of the sprite?

thats why i suggested you connect the feet and hands (that means, creating the limbs) AFTER having finally animated the elements they connect

[Imagician]

as i said above, think of creating a Rayman-type animation first. here's on from the net:



after that step is completed, do the connecting limbs.

that's of course just one possible way, but in most cases it works for me. you can try and see how it works for you

[thebombsauce]

So first off I want to thank you immensely for going above and beyond to help me improve my art. As for your suggestions the Rayman one was very helpful and I used it to make better legs and arms by just connecting the shoes and hands after I draw them, as for the body bob I did the best that I could but I had to change the timing a bit since if the timing is too jerky it will look bad regardless. As for the crotch criticism I took a line off of the pants but I honestly can't completely perceive what you are talking about.

here is what I have now after about an entire night of doing and redoing

[Imagician]

quite an improvement from your former version

just two quick things here:

• the up-movement is a bit jerky, because when she pushes away from the ground, you immediately put her to the highest position, instead of moving her up more smoothly. i must point out though, that even though the up-and-down motion is not linear*, it feels a bit too rapid here. (*but instead the vertical speed is higher the lower the body is, and is slower the closer to the peak it is (because of gravitational pull downwards)).
• concerning the upper joint of the upper leg: it should bend away from the body somewhere around the crotch region, but in your case it looks as if the leg is connected to low.

EDIT:

another thing you could try: as she's running quite sporty now, maybe it would look less stiff if she's leaning a little front. here's a dirty edit to show what i mean:

[thebombsauce]

I fixed the bob according to your first point, and the I think the crotch thing we are just going to have to agree to disagree thought I will shade the top of the pants to maybe give them some motion, I was actually looking at action poses and I think just a simple lean into the run looks good, I'm really liking the look of this and I'm thinking after I shade the legs I'll be ready to call this done if you haven't anymore qualms



also unrelated to this but how long have you been drawing, spriting and animating and do you do this professionally?

[Imagician]

i think it looks nice and even though there's always something one can "optimize" calling this done soon would be quite ok.

anyways, about the upper leg , i still think it's bending away to low, and i'd consider this objectively not corresponding to "normal" anatomy. but i guess it could be worse, so have it your way

since you asked, been pixeling from an early age, with varying intensity (my first piece was a picture of ALF on an east german computer called KC85 or KC87, must have been late 80s or ealry 90's). doing pixel animations from like '93 or '94 or something, using Deluxe Paint II (PC). it's part of what i do for living now (alongside interface design).