[WIP] New Avatar

[Fry]

I felt so left out without having an avatar like the majority of you talented people, so I whipped this up quickly.  In much need of polishing, but at least it's something for now. 

-Fry

[0xDB]

That's too much animation/movement for an avatar and can get somewhat disturbing when having to view it all the time, while reading a thread. That's just my opinion though.

As for crits on how to improve the piece itself:
I'd not just mirror the frames but also change their shading, so that the lightsource stays the same all the time and doesn't suddenly warp over to the other side.

[Fry]

That's a very good point about having too much animation.  It's already starting to get on my nerves.

And yeah, the mirroring was a cop-out at this point, time to work on some patience. 

[AdamAtomic]

people's eyes are not almond-shaped if you look at the side of their faces - they're pie-shaped

[Serena]

Also, I think it's weird how his nose/face seems to get bigger when he turns to the side when you'd think it would get smaller because of perspective. Right now it's like he's moving his head closer to the "camera" as he turns his head. I think just making the front view a little bigger (especially the nose which would be closest to the camera) would make this piece a lot cooler-looking.

I do like it though! Lots of personality!

[Stwelin]

It would be interesting if you picked a position for it, a still from this animation, i mean, and then added some idle motion. Eye blinking, smiling, ear wiggling (lol). Just little things. Animation in an avatar has to be approached subtly, especially at this size. Smaller gifs or sprites can pull it off, but this just seems distracting.

Adam: i have to disagree about the eyes, i've noticed this forum becoming (well, maybe it always has been) more focused on the 'average' outlook on anatomy. Not everyone is seven heads in height, not everyone's ears are level, not everyones lips are a certain width, not everyone's forehead is a certain size. Sure, there is a point where these issues border overexageration, but the eyes... they are perfectly fine, they fit the piece well, in fact. I'm surprised you picked out the eyes and said nothing about the teeth being RIDICULOUSLY large. This isn't directed to you personally, but i think that you should at least understand that the artist may be making the choices out of preference and not ignorance.

[Fry]

Stwelin - Thanks, I think I will do a subtle idle motion animation (actually I was thinking of doing something to mock the Professor from Brain Age for the Nintendo DS).  I still may fix up the head shake animation in hopes of it becoming part of my portfolio, but as an avatar, it definately distracts.

Serena - Thanks for the advice, i'll definately play around with your suggestion and see how it turns out.

AdamAtomic - Haha, my design teacher would kill me if he saw my almond eyes.  I had a lot of difficulty with the eyes on the side profile.  Whenever I would animate with the pie shaped eyes it looked like he was closing them slightly every time he turned.  Certain things definately are quite a bit easier on paper, still try to get ahold of this whole pixel thing again.

-Fry

     

[Rynen10K]

I thought the eyes to be rather stylistic... it works for me.

Anyway, the thing that is bugging me the most is the nose - either make the middle frame bigger, or the others smaller...

I like it, though. The animation doesn't bother me 

[AdamAtomic]

It would be interesting if you picked a position for it, a still from this animation, i mean, and then added some idle motion. Eye blinking, smiling, ear wiggling (lol). Just little things. Animation in an avatar has to be approached subtly, especially at this size. Smaller gifs or sprites can pull it off, but this just seems distracting.

Adam: i have to disagree about the eyes, i've noticed this forum becoming (well, maybe it always has been) more focused on the 'average' outlook on anatomy. Not everyone is seven heads in height, not everyone's ears are level, not everyones lips are a certain width, not everyone's forehead is a certain size. Sure, there is a point where these issues border overexageration, but the eyes... they are perfectly fine, they fit the piece well, in fact. I'm surprised you picked out the eyes and said nothing about the teeth being RIDICULOUSLY large. This isn't directed to you personally, but i think that you should at least understand that the artist may be making the choices out of preference and not ignorance.

I wasn't trying to make a judgment based on specific anatomy, just human anatomy in general...this isn't about the eye shape being proportional, its about when his skull rotates, and the cross-section of the sphere that makes up the eye changes perspective, the shape of the eye doesn't change at all.  The shape of the face and the eyelids and skin that make the eyes generally almond-oval-ellipsoid-whatever from the front are precisely what make them pie-triangle-section-shaped from the side   the eyes can be whatever shape you want, I could care less, but maintaining that shape through massive perspective changes seems weird to me, and distracting, when every other part of the face changes perspective properly.

EDIT - regardless if it was done intentionally or not, its a point of distraction for me that, in my opinion, detracts from the piece, style or no.  Mainly because the teeth, nose and ears all shift and change when the head tilts, but the eye (and more importantly the entire eye socket) do not.

[Xion]

EDIT - regardless if it was done intentionally or not, its a point of distraction for me that, in my opinion, detracts from the piece, style or no.  Mainly because the teeth, nose and ears all shift and change when the head tilts, but the eye (and more importantly the entire eye socket) do not.

This is true. It struck me as odd as well.
Awesome though. I really like the expression. Frightening.

I think it might be less obnoxious as an avatar if you slowed it down and did a full 360 rotation.