AuthorTopic: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation  (Read 4431 times)

Offline Wes

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Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

on: July 06, 2009, 05:11:29 pm
Hey. Haven't posted in quite a while. Over the past couple of days I've begun developing some characters for a platform game.



I've begun doing the animating for the main character, Mortimer Cool.



I'd love feedbac on everything. Expect more soon. Thanks. :)

EDIT: Man, I just looked at my ancient topics on this forum and I can't believe how much I've improved.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2009, 05:21:08 pm by Wes »

Offline Scribblette

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Re: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

Reply #1 on: July 07, 2009, 01:20:08 am
I don't know enough to critique (bringing up centre of gravity on the animated sideview seems pointless vs awesome style), but just wanted to input that I think these are fantastic. I'd love to have that much character in my sprites.
Now reading: Animator's Survival Kit, Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain, Fun With A Pencil. No time to pixel!
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Offline Pizza Tom

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Re: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

Reply #2 on: July 07, 2009, 03:09:39 am
I really like the style of these guys! The only problem I can see is there's a slight readability issue on the old lady. It's hard to tell where her mouth ends due to that necklace-type-thing using the same colors. I'm seriously digging everything else though, 'specially Mortimer. :y:
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Offline Scribblette

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Re: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

Reply #3 on: July 07, 2009, 03:27:56 am
I guess there must be a readability issue, as I thought it was a crazy old man (something about the face?). I should've realized the hips made it female.
Now reading: Animator's Survival Kit, Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain, Fun With A Pencil. No time to pixel!
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Offline Sinistral Erim

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Re: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

Reply #4 on: July 07, 2009, 03:31:24 am
Your work reminds me of the sprites from a Wario game. :P Well done!

The animation you have there looks too stiff, you will have to try to make your character look more organic. Right now it appears like a paper doll that is walking around the screen. Subpixeling the head might help with the stiff look and removing the pillow shading from the pants might help with removing the flat look.

Offline Scribblette

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Re: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

Reply #5 on: July 07, 2009, 05:10:04 am
Actually, I meant to ask... do you have any bare-chested or similar characters in this style you'd care to show too? I've been trying to figure out how to use fewer colours on sprites to save on time, and you do it quite nicely on clothes and skin. *studies*
Now reading: Animator's Survival Kit, Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain, Fun With A Pencil. No time to pixel!
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Offline Jad

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Re: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

Reply #6 on: July 07, 2009, 07:22:35 am
I'd say your frame delay is a bit short; the animation plays very fast.

He's got something of a balance issue, he's leaning back but his foot doesn't extend enough backwards in his walk, so it looks as if he's gonna fall over backwards any second.

I also think it'd be a mistake to keep the torso static and then animate arms and legs entirely separately, you've gotta get that counterbalance thing down!

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Offline Atnas

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Re: Mortimer Cool's cool walk animation

Reply #7 on: July 07, 2009, 12:40:04 pm
Jad's right about the torso twisting. And have you thought about how cool the cool walk would be if he snapped his fingers on the ascending motion of each arm? @u@

Your characters have very appealing design but there's a little pillowing and weak shading going on which doesn't let the designs amount to all they could. They're also a little bit under-saturated. Desaturation isn't a bad thing, but it can be when it means the contrast suffers. I made a quick edit which appeals to my own tastes a little more in terms of color, but it also helps the clarity.
                       
Consisting of: bumping up the the overall contrast followed by the darkening of that gray shadow you use on the hair, and then trying to remove "islands" of colors by making the islands extend to touch the outlines, and preferably be surrounded by other colors on the least number of sides, not including outlines. The outline of the hair was messy so I attempted to clean it up. I tried to eliminate single pixel lines of shadows along the outlines. The two pixel abyss between the legs wasn't really helping much, it wasn't making the legs seem like they had any curve inwards, so I got rid of it.

There are other minor instances of pillow shading on Mortimer Cool's pants, search and destroy! Your designs will come to life much more effectively than they already do when the shapes read clearly and distinctly without being muddied by useless shading. If this were another medium, I suppose "form bending" shadow would apply to those areas, but because this kind of pixel art is indexed, you don't really have the luxury of soft gradients, not to mention at this size it merely hurts the crisp distinct shapes that are important for optimum readability.

If Helm were writing this he would probably say something about claustrophobic pixel clusters. So let them breathe and have nice large clusters of uninterrupted delicious pixels!