AuthorTopic: Animated Rabbit  (Read 10193 times)

Offline MightyVince

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Animated Rabbit

on: August 15, 2008, 12:40:13 am
Hello everybody!

First post in this forum which seems to be a quite fun community :) . Here's a little rabbit I've done in GraphicsGale for a platformer game I'm trying to do. This is my first pixel-art (my first real attempt at visual art too!) so I'd like to have some feedback on the rabbit itself or/and the animation before I continue making more animations for my little fellow here.

-- ORIGINAL --

Still image :

Walking image :

-- LAST EDIT --

Still image :

Walking image :
« Last Edit: August 18, 2008, 05:45:53 am by MightyVince »

Offline chriskot

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #1 on: August 15, 2008, 01:00:39 am
I like the image. For a first pixel-art it is quite good.

I think that the front paws should push back a bit further. Also, you might want to consider making the ears more dynamic, since ears that big a bound to be at least a bit floppy.

Offline missingno

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #2 on: August 15, 2008, 03:14:01 am
I think you could benefit a lot from increasing the contrast in your colors (and/or maybe taking out a color or two). Your darker shades there (which are still pretty light) tend to be pretty close to each other, and when viewed at 1x they all appear to be a single solid color.

Offline Lunar

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #3 on: August 15, 2008, 03:22:49 am
Very nice for for a first try at pixel art.  Has a nice, clean feel to it.

I basicly second every thing chriskot said about the running animation, apart from those minor details it looks pretty good.

You should definatly try your hand at animating the still image.

-Seth

Offline Cure

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #4 on: August 15, 2008, 04:21:17 am
That bunny is in slo-mo.  I'd expect the scene to take place on the moon.  The bunny itself looks fine.

Offline MightyVince

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #5 on: August 15, 2008, 06:04:24 am
Thanks for the nice and constructive comments guys!

I've followed your good advices and made the following changes :

- Removed two shades and increased the contrast in my colors
- In the process, I've redone the shading
- Fixed the paws so it goes further backwards in the animation

As for the speed, it was just something I forgot to correct when converting the sprite sheet to the GIF. It's now up to his intended speed!

I'll tackle the dynamic ears tommorow (or should I say today since it's 2AM here :-[) then I'll make still animations.

Still image :

Animated image :

Offline kitty

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #6 on: August 15, 2008, 07:08:37 am
Welcome to Pixelation! :]
This is very cute!
Don't forget the whiskers.  Animation is all about subtle details.
never pretend to be drunker than you really are

Offline 0xDB

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #7 on: August 15, 2008, 08:08:13 am
Hi MightyVince,

very nice for a first piece.

I felt that the head was a little too static and made an edit that illustrates how I think it should move more (on some kind of tilted elliptic path, that moves with the rest of the body).
I did not only change the head though, as I got carried away a bit.
I also got rid of the strong line between head and body, which made the two seem too much like separate entities not belonging to the same whole body and I added a leg that seemed missing.


It ended up looking like a bunny who thinks he's a little puppy or the other way round but well, maybe this edit still helps in showing how some head movement can make it more dynamic:

Offline PypeBros

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #8 on: August 15, 2008, 09:31:58 am
the still picture seems very good, and the animation is über-cute, but it does not quite look like a moving rabbit.
At first, rabbits do not jump from their 'standing' position. They are more crouching, the belly on the ground before and after the jump. They could also be running, where they group and extend like a spring (or like a running tiger).

Offline Ben2theEdge

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Re: Animated Rabbit

Reply #9 on: August 15, 2008, 01:43:28 pm
The still bunny is nice but the animated bunny has a few beginner mistakes. Overall it looks like the work of a timid animator, avoiding any large motions. The result is very stiff and lifeless. I have two pieces of advice.

1) Give yourself more room to work with when animating; your bunny looks like he is wedged into a box and it's not giving him room to move realistically. Use a much bigger canvas with plenty of empty space on the sides and top, and then crop it when you're done. This will help avoid claustrophobic, timid movements. Stretch his limbs out when he hops, don't be shy!

2) Try working with keyframes. This is an old, kind of lame example of mine: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4599.msg57614#msg57614 Draw the extreme positions first and then fill in the frames between. Right now you're trying to make the whole animation with one frame that you slightly modify. This will always yield poor results without exception, it's just too restricting for an animator to create compelling motion. If you want a nice animation you're going to have to draw the character more than once. This is true for pixel art, for flash animation, for theatrical animation, and everything in-between.
I mild from suffer dislexia.