My First Animated Pixel Art :)

[DHyd]

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dustin, I plan on becoming the best pixel artist ;) Currently, near the bottom on that totem pole XD
I just started making pixel art over the weekend mainly because:
A. I love look of it.
B. I'm going to make a game with this style :)

Above is my first animation, any critique would be nice and greatly appreciated :) Below is my second animation, an idle animation.



Please excuse the grey background, I forgot to delete that afterwards xD
What do you guys think? Too dark? I personally don't like color ramping, it just looks weird to me, so I stick with shading of the same tone.
From my understanding, color ramping is to make it look like an older game?

Cheers,

[PsylentKnight]

I don't know what you mean by color ramping. Maybe you mean hue shifting? If so, no, hue shifting is not to make it look like an older game. Its a technique all mediums of art employ to make the shading more natural looking, typically by making light shades yellower and darker shades bluer.

As for the run animation, its looks very nice but for starters, there needs to be some vertical movement.

[mzn528]

Good start Dustin! There needs to be some head movements and up and downs, I used this pic as a reference: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/p_images/walk_2_legs(side).gif
Hope it helps!

[DHyd]

I don't know what you mean by color ramping. Maybe you mean hue shifting? If so, no, hue shifting is not to make it look like an older game. Its a technique all mediums of art employ to make the shading more natural looking, typically by making light shades yellower and darker shades bluer.

As for the run animation, its looks very nice but for starters, there needs to be some vertical movement.

Haha yea, I meant hue shifting. Maybe I'm just really bad at hue shifting - I'll try it out some more.

Good start Dustin! There needs to be some head movements and up and downs, I used this pic as a reference: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/p_images/walk_2_legs(side).gif
Hope it helps!

So, I made the head bounce, or at least attempted at it. Honestly, looks so much better! Thanks

[PsylentKnight]

What mzn said is kind of what I meant by vertical movement, but the thing is that his entire body (not just his head) needs to be at its highest point each time a leg is most directly under his body.  The way your animation is now, the legs are becoming shorter when they move under his body to compensate for the lack of vertical movement. Moving in the right direction though.