[CC] Sprites for RPG/adventure game

[Peltast]

Hi all!  Workin' on another "walk-around-and-talk-to-stuff" game.  I don't have much to look at as of yet, but wanted to pause for a bit before I move on to animating this character.  Feedback of any variety is welcome!

Template (colored more to delineate shapes than have consistent lighting):


Player character:


Thoughts:
- the back-facing sprite seems weird and off-balance to me despite being the same pose but mirrored
- idk how hair works
- the shirt has an opened collar - not sure how well that reads
- previously my sprites have been a bit too reminiscent of other games ^earthbound; not sure how much I can do in this general style/resolution but I'm trying to make my sprites stand apart a bit more.

[MysteryMeat]

notes:

-lower top of skull be about a pixel
-remember that hair tends to add about a pixel to two pixels extra due to how fluffy it can be
-try to sketch out where the hair comes from before starting on the overall shape, you can kinda flub hair a bit since people generally don't notice if it looks weird. See also: homestuck and it's wacky ass nonsense

[Sleepdeprivedartist]

For the side views maybe move the skull back about 1 pixel. It will help give it that round skull kind of shape. (If it was intentional though, you don't have to change it or anything.) Maybe add more hair near the top half of the back of the head as well. Anyways I think they look good so far!

-Doodles

[Peltast]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

-lower top of skull be about a pixel
-remember that hair tends to add about a pixel to two pixels extra due to how fluffy it can be

Yup, as soon as I shortened their skull it looked a lot better and less cone-head-ish.  It looks like I don't have to change the hair to match though, due to fluffiness.

try to sketch out where the hair comes from before starting on the overall shape

Good advice!  I was trying to keep an idea of where the crown was, but I never really started there with the sketching and did jump ahead to blocking out the shapes.  I'll give that a try in the future but haven't had the time yet for this edit.

For the side views maybe move the skull back about 1 pixel. It will help give it that round skull kind of shape.

Hmm, do you mean widening the skull back, or moving the whole thing?  I tried both but it looked weird to me in both cases.  In the former case, it does make the head rounder but I'm used to heads being a bit more elliptical I guess? 

Maybe add more hair near the top half of the back of the head as well.

This looked a lot better, as the lack of hair on the back made the head look kind of caved in.

Here's my edits so far, it's nothing major as I could still experiment more with the feedback but I think it's still an improvement.

[Sleepdeprivedartist]

The hair thing looks great! Forget about what I said about moving the skull though, I now realize that would look silly.
 

[Peltast]

It's been a while, but I've moved on to a bit of animation.  I've only done more frame-light animations in the past, so this was a fun new spin on things! 


The main things that stick out to me: I had difficulty animating the hair, so I ended up giving it very little movement because most of what I tried just looked like it was moving independent of the body, not following its up/down movement.  But it seems like a missed opportunity not to make the hair more dynamic.  Also, the head bounce on the forward walk-cycle looks good to me, but doesn't match the movement in the side-view versions.

[thesydneylad]

Hey Peltast, I'm a newb at pixel art, but I just gotta say, the fluidity in that character animation is amazing.

I didn't think I'd ever see such fluidity in motion after Sonic Mania.

[pistachio]

Weird things going on in side view:
Guy's cranium still squished IMO
Timing of arms swinging is linear, could use ease-in/ease-out in timing (https://amford5.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/slow-in-and-out.jpg?w=497&h=388)
Morphing going on with the legs. The foot gets smaller on upstep. To an extent that is happening in the front view as well, and you may want forced perspective there but it doesn't work in side view.

[Peltast]

Thanks for feedback guys!

Hey Peltast, I'm a newb at pixel art, but I just gotta say, the fluidity in that character animation is amazing.

Glad you like it - I was inspired by Cyangmou's side by side comparison of 8 frame vs 16 frame cycles.

Guy's cranium still squished IMO

Hmm, it took me a while to see it myself but the ear gave it away as it's basically touching the back of the head, which it definitely shouldn't.  Hopefully this looks better.  It makes the hair look...poofier than I was hoping for, but not sure of a way around that.

Timing of arms swinging is linear, could use ease-in/ease-out in timing (https://amford5.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/slow-in-and-out.jpg?w=497&h=388)
Morphing going on with the legs. The foot gets smaller on upstep. To an extent that is happening in the front view as well, and you may want forced perspective there but it doesn't work in side view.

Good points.   The linear arm movement gave it a stiff look.  I've tried to add easing with the arms and keep the feet consistent in size.


I also added a bit of forward torso movement after contact, not sure how I feel about it yet.  The hair animation will have to be updated to match.

[MysteryMeat]

torso should rotate slightly with arm movement

[Peltast]

Alrighty, adjusted forward/left/right cycles and added the fourth.



I tried to add a bit of torso rotation to the forward cycle, and tweaked the animation on the hair for all others to try and make it a bit more lively and react to body movement.  I walked back some of the added width of the hair on the side-view - the cut is supposed to be very short in the back going down to the neck, so I think it makes sense for the hair to join the head's outline there.

[Helm]

Hi! I don't have a lot of critique because I love your sprites, honestly. I can see you've gotten a lot of great help in this thread, this makes me happy. The only thing I wanted to mention, and I don't mean to contradict critique elsewhere, but I am not usually a fan of moving the head of a sprite horisontally on a walk cycle much, because although it might look correct stationary, once the sprite is in the game and moving to a place I've almost always found back-and-forth head movement to be too snappy. Because the sprite is ALREADY in motion at probably more than 1 pixel per frame, when the head falls back it will look as if it's staying in the same place for a duration of cycles, and then when the sprite gets to push its head forward 1 pixel in the abstract, in motion it'll look like much more than one pixel. Try it out in your engine or even just in flash or some other animation suite and you might see what I'm talking about. Perhaps that's my pet peeve, though. Anyway, gorgeous little character!

[Peltast]

Hey, thanks for the kind words!!    Yep, this thread has been very helpful.

The horizontal movement was my own addition, so no contradictions there.  I'll be sure to see what it looks like in the game and watch for that jarring effect - it'll be easy to remove the horizontal movement if that's the case.