AuthorTopic: Introductions and Pixels  (Read 9548 times)

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Introductions and Pixels

on: April 15, 2014, 11:57:54 pm
Hello there embers of Pixelation, I am new here and I joined up to try and better myself as a pixel artists. Right now I am trying to learn animation.
My first project was creating an idle character stance, something basic.

Here is the result. This was done in 4 frames.
Now I want to try and create a running animation for this sprite, but I have never attempted it. My goal is to make the running animation withing 4 frames as well.

Here is what I've got so far, the only problem with this, is I am not sure how to fit in the body, the arms and head in with what I've got so far.

Offline cels

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #1 on: April 16, 2014, 01:46:11 am
This looks brilliant already. The little feather / ear bounce is particularly charming.

I'm no expert on anatomy, but it seems to me that his left leg is pointing so much to our right that it would be impossible for him to bend the knee without moving his knee forward. But maybe the slight bounce is not enough to warrant the knee moving a full pixel to the right, I don't know.

I don't know how people tend to do idle animations, but my impression is that they're meant to look like heavy breathing and/or idle movements like stretching, flexing, etc. This guy seems to have a lot of vertical movement from the bending of the knees, while his arms are completely locked and are barely moving independently of his torso. It actually makes him look a bit like a boxer, who's keeping his arms tight on purpose (as a guard), while bouncing up and down. But then, you would expect him to stand on the balls of his feet. If this is for a game that is primarily about running and jumping instead of fighting, then perhaps you could loosen up his arm, shoulders and torso, like he's taking deep breaths. Hell, even in Street Fighter 2, many characters look like they're taking very deep breaths when idle.

In regards to the running animation, I don't quite understand what you want to know. Are you simply not sure how to start drawing a basic running animation? If that's the case, then just googling running animation is always a good first step. Beyond that, I'll leave any elaborate explanation to more educated artists. I've seen a lot of people say that it's very hard to do a nice running animation with only 4 frames though, so you may want to reconsider and go with 6 or 8.

Hope this helps, even though I don't really know much about animation. People with more knowledge will come along shortly, I'm sure.

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #2 on: April 16, 2014, 02:06:45 am
Thank you for the nice comments, well in way this is just practice, that is why this is restricted to 4 frames only, after that I want to go for much more complicated and advanced pieces of work.
The main purpose I started this was because over at the VG Resource's Forums there is a forum project in which users are allowed to create a fighter of their choice using a restricted palette and image size, also, most of the animations are usually 4 frames long.
So basically, yes the character is meant to have a fighting stance. Personally, I created this character to have a "relaxed" nature, his hands would be in his pockets, and he wouldn't move much. But since he will be fighting for his life, he must have some sort of visual representation of a defensive stance.
Now about the running, well I have never made a running/walking animation ever, I have a few references but I can't get it to quite look what I want it to, the torso and arms are what keeps bugging me whenever I try drawing them. That i why I drew the legs separately, because I have created pixel art that shows character as if they were running, but there is no animation in progress.

And finally, thank you for liking the character, the animation actually took me a while because it was my first animated character ever, so this is the latest version of him yet :)
« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 03:50:21 am by Level 1 »

Offline Kasumi

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #3 on: April 16, 2014, 02:18:53 am
One thing that's getting me in the idle is the horizontal gray shading stripe in the middle of his jacket is moving in sync with his right hand, so it sort of looks like it's a gray thing held in his fist.
I make actual NES games. Thus, I'm the unofficial forum dealer of too much information about the NES

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #4 on: April 16, 2014, 02:21:14 am
Oh good point, I never noticed that, I will fixed that, thanks.

Edit:
I think I got it.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2014, 02:26:14 am by Level 1 »

Offline Rosier

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #5 on: April 16, 2014, 03:08:42 am
Try not making the arms so stiff.  Have the forearms kinda bounce around.

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #6 on: April 16, 2014, 06:34:03 am

Is this better? I sorta made the arms move with the bouncing of the knees, but I am not too sure

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #7 on: April 16, 2014, 08:39:14 am
Looks like it's updated in your avatar, but you linked to an older version in the thread?

Anyway, looks better, but arms still seem stiff.  When moving upwards, make the hands lag a pixel lower than the elbow, and vice versa.  :y:

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #8 on: April 16, 2014, 09:35:50 am
Oh weird, must had been a misplacement of of links.
And I am not really sure what you mean. I am working with only 4 frames here so doing that would require at least another 2 frames in between the rising to the starting frame and another frame in between going down

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Introductions and Pixels

Reply #9 on: April 16, 2014, 10:01:22 am
4 frames is fine, just have the hand follow a frame behind:

frame one:  elbow up + hand up
frame two:  elbow down + hand up
frame three:  elbow down + hand down
frame four:  elbow up + hand down

Sorry - I'll do an edit later if that's still not clear!