[WIP][CC] Villager Walk Cycle

[crispyghost]

Hello. I just found this community and it seems really awesome!

I read through all of the rules and FAQs -- I hope that posting these two images here doesn't count as an artdump. I'm posting them together because one is based off the other.

I created this archer a few weeks ago for a game that I'm working on. It's a 2d platformer with some RTS-like mechanics. The animated gifs show the size of the art in-game. (I'll create these at 100% next time)



From this archer, I removed the bow and quiver to create a villager.



The villager's walk cycle doesn't read as well to me. I think it's because the arm doesn't have much contrast and the torso doesn't move, except for a 1-pixel bob. The bow an quiver in the archer hides a lot of these imperfections.

I've tried moving the torso a bit for the villager but it just makes him look a bit lumbering.

What would you recommend to make the villager's walk cycle less boring? Do you have any general feedback on the archer? The archer is the first animated pixel art I'd ever created, so I'm still very new to this medium.

I created all of the assets from scratch, except for the palette, which is DB32.

[CFKaligula]

Edit: I changed the colours to make the animation more clear.

I tried adding some 3dimensionality (if thats a word) to your character. Your sprite is very en profile, when making a side view, its usually a good idea to make the body a little tilted to have a nicer view of the character. Just take a look at other 2D platformer games.  Another problem is that the size of his feet change a lot, they go from pretty bulky to just lines. I tried fixing this a bit in my edit.

I would say as a general piece of advice: Look at references. Just search for walking animations and see how you can recreate them with your sprite.