My Gallery [criticism desirable]

[TheBigBang]

Hi! I'm beginner at animating but here are my two first animation:
upright running cat:

upright idle:

I appreciate all comments!
Edit: Which nose position is better?

[YellowLime]

Hello! Welcome to the forums

You've ran into a common pitfall people face when animating walk/run cycles for the first time: When a leg goes in front, we balance it with the opposite arm! Watch a couple slow-motion running videos to see what I mean.

Getting into the colors, you could probably go with two colors and not three. Fur is matte and not glossy
I'd say go with two colors (for each differently colored fur), normal and shade. And have the shade be noticeably different than the normal, which isn't happening right now in the lightest colored fur

Dithering ('crosshatching' to give it texture) also doesn't work that well in such a low resolution... I'm no expert on this, but I'd recommend just removing the dithering outright.

As for the nose position, I like the second one better

[BatElite]

I think, that the biggest issue right now is inconsitency between frames/animations.
A few examples in the run animation:

-The lower front arm considerably grows larger as it goes to the right.
-The pelvis moves gradually higher until the front leg touches the ground again.
-The thorax repeatedly changes shape.

Between the two animations, the arms are thicker in the run, the thorax is different and the pelvis differs in width.

As far as colours are concerned, I agree with YellowLime that you should ditch the dither. I also notice that your colours are quite similar; Two colours on the back leg are difficult to tell apart, and the near black colours blend together as well.

As for the nose, I do like the idle one more, but I don't think that you add another colour for it when the rest of the cat is so undetailed.

[Shipright]

First off you made some of the same mistakes I did in The tread below this with the run. I did the exact same arm swing mistake! So don't beat yourself up about that.

I am a beginner at this so take my advice with a grain of salt, but if you are also a beginner then my perspective might be helpful as I was probably solving the same problems a few months back.

1. One, you need a vertical body bob timed with the leg drops. One pixel should be enough.

2. Next add a vertical head bob that's one frame behind the body bob. You did both of these of these for the idle animation so just apply them to the run.

3. Based on your fps for the animation pick a consistent pixel length for your limbs to move back and forth. Say the foot moves back four pixels per frame for example. These are for the main movement frames, not the hang frames for the front and back of a leg or arms cycle.

4. The tail is wrong. You have a complete series for both the right and left leg, the tail animation should repeat for each of those so basically twice inside the animation as a whole. The forces acting on it are exactly the same for each leg movement. So for an eight frame animation for instance the tail should repeat after four frames.

5 I like the idle and there isn't much I'd change. You have a lot of muscle movement due to the thick limbs you are using. That's awesome but the transitions between frames are very jerky. Try and smooth those out some.

[TheBigBang]

The newest animation (not finished yet)!


Edit. What effect would be great to the kick?

I made some fixes and added effect. Any cooler or better effect?

       

Edit2. Made some fixes to feet, the tail, the lime effect and frame delay. Which delay is better? left one is 100% speed and right one 125%

[Neophos]

The tail changes massively in both length and thickness during the animation. It's especially noticeable during the last part, where it's practically still but changes rapidly in length. Same goes for the shins.

Also, the foot goes on after the collision like it hit a sheet of paper. Remember, for every reaction, there's an opposite one. Look at something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rkcJBK0ecw The body moves back when it hits. He needs to have already braced himself when he hits, otherwise he'd be blown off balance.

[The B.O.B.]

The newest animation (not finished yet)!

   I remember seeing this in pixeljoint.com and I commented on it. I didn't realize you posted it here as well, after a bit of perusing in the animation section. I was kinda' confused as to how the character was physically pulling off the move as the way his arm is bending when he leans back on the ground seemed a bit unrealistic(ignoring the 'it's a cartoon'/'style' excuses).

   I wanted to make sure that I was seeing what I was thinking I was seeing correctly, so I colored in the limbs certain colors to tell which were which. Whether they are the front or backs is irrelevant, as animating something like this should be extremely clear as to what the character is doing. In this case, the one tone character's movement is seen a bit more clearly with the lines, which you can see below:



   The confusion is that when someone does a kick-up, they don't move their arms behind them like your character is seemingly doing in your animation. Doing so would cause one's arms to break by the sheer weight caused by the off-balance, if they were to just jump backward the way your character is. I suppose an animation is in call as to understand just what exactly I'm seeing when I view your animation:
 


   I tried to redo the animation, both with the colored limbs and non-colored limbs, so you can see a different method/approach to the movement. Normally, if someone is trying to do a stand-to-ground kick-up, they'd use the upper-back as a landing pad. The arms would move in front and over their heads, landing above the shoulders while grounded, so they can help as the stabilization for the spring created by the body when he pops up. Other details would be sizing and maintaining proportions with your character's limbs and such. Also, I felt like the attack from the kick-up needed a bit of a better arch so I extended that leg a bit, but brought it in as he landed. Either way, I know you're already finished with it. I just wanted to add my two cents to the issue.  Here it is, below:



ps, don't be afraid to try different shapes with your characters! Experiment and move away from the stick-figures or silhouettes.

[TheBigBang]

First: Thank you! And amazing animations!

It's nice that you put your own time to re-animate my animation and explain things. This teaches me (a new comer) a lot.