Character Animation [C+C]

[Ashedragon]

I'm just starting out in animation (one-man team! woo...) and I'm struggling to work out proper idle and combat idle animations for this character. I just can't seem to convey what I see in my head onto my pixelated canvas!

In the idle animation, I was trying to go for some calm breathing with her clothing rippling a bit in response--but I couldn't quite get it to not look terrible (especially the latter) so here's that:
.
I feel like I would need to use subpixel animation to get a nice breathing animation for her, but I'm already struggling just using regular animation, haha.
Maybe I also need to slow it down further and introduce more pause at the extremes?

And this is the combat idle:

The goal for this was a simple animation for when she is engaging an enemy and she would hold a one-handed blade in her right (our left) hand.

Hopefully, this is remotely coherent...

[MysteryMeat]

her legs seem to be shrinking and growing there, it might help to have the feet shift slightly to maintain proportion better.

[danmanr98]

I think in between the neck and head requires some further distinction from each-other(I think mainly this is due to the fact that the color of the neck and the color of the hair are too similar), and the blushing cheeks might need to be a more noticeable tone? None of these are major necessities, it's just something I though was worth pointing out.

Other than the aforementioned, I like it

[Ashedragon]

I tried having her feet shift before but because I'm not very good it doesn't turn out nicely. It only accentuates the stiffness of the overall animation. I tried drawing thirds and halves in between them a number of times as well to make them look less jittery, but that also doesn't work with my level of skill.


Here is the latest iteration of them with a bit more distinction between the neck and the head.

[MysteryMeat]

I'd say that second one solves it pretty well. I'd try to add a between frame to smooth out the bob a bit, but it's not 100% necessary there.
Good work, btw, I really dig the design here!

[Ashedragon]

Thanks! I had tons of fun designing her. I think it only took about 4 days total (which is rather surprising for me, since usually it can take upwards of 3 months of planning and trying different things).

But the in-between for the second one is really where I start to blank, to be honest. I'm not sure how to add an in-between to smooth out a single pixel of movement (e.g. her arms). :/

[Zia]

I don't have time to do an edit right now for you, but on smaller sprites like this, I often find back-and-forth idle animations (especially combat ones!) to be more effective than up-down ones. It might be something worth trying. Here's a pirate I did quite a while back that illustrates this.

[MysteryMeat]

Thanks! I had tons of fun designing her. I think it only took about 4 days total (which is rather surprising for me, since usually it can take upwards of 3 months of planning and trying different things).

But the in-between for the second one is really where I start to blank, to be honest. I'm not sure how to add an in-between to smooth out a single pixel of movement (e.g. her arms). :/

I'd try subpixeling it, it might be a bit hard with the solid black outline but it's a good way to work with the limitations.
There's a guide up here: http://2dwillneverdie.com/tutorial/give-your-sprites-depth-with-sub-pixel-animation/