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[BorisTheBrave]

Hello, I'm a long time board member... as a developer.

I decided to try my hand at some non-programmer art, for I think the first time ever. Can all you talented guys help me out?

I took this as my base as I don't have any real creativity. I wanted a sprite for a top down action adventure like the 2d Zeldas or Binding of Isaac, to fit with 16x16 tiles at 2x zoom and a light palette for the background. I've failed at "top-down", though.





Animating was a lot of work! I don't want to try animating any further until I've got the basic design locked down. How am I doing? I particular struggled with the amount of black to use, and keeping it readable when limbs cross the body. How would I go about adding extra colors to the palette?

[oahda]

The head and hair movement is great. I'd make the arm move too. The legs move a bit weirdly tho, kinda like a "high knees" exercise.

[Artsicle]

I'm not an artist or an expert at all, but it feels like you should make the torso a little bigger. Just a thought

[ScribblyLines]

Cool poses! maybe try having the arms animate with the whole body as well. gl man

[Papich]

Try to animate the arms, it needs to follow the walking movement.
Animating is a bit tricky at first, good luck

[BorisTheBrave]

Alright, message recieved, moving the arms with the body.

The "high knees" is deliberate, she's wearing shinpads as armour. Maybe that doesn't really come accros well.

[Papich]

It looks better.
The "high knees" is less disturbing when the arms are following the movement.

[Jad]

The downstep in a walking animation needs to have the foot in front of the character, otherwise it's the same motion as one does when about to topple over forwards.

So make sure your character puts their foot down in front of the body.

[eliasfrost]

Yeah it looks better but like Jad said she needs to put her foot in front of her body. Think of walking as if you are repeatedly catching yourself from falling forward and transfering weight from one leg to another.

[BorisTheBrave]

I made some small adjustments to the legs, but it doesn't look different to my eye:



I checked some references - it seems the faster you are running, the less far in front of your torso your foot actually lands. Perhaps the animation is too slow?

Also:



I had to make the sword longer for it to actually be useful as an attack, but now it's not consistent with the rest of the frames.

[Shambrook]

For good snappy looking attack animations never show the actual travel, show the anticipation, then cut straight to the finished pose, and put the animation into the follow through, it will looks way better.

[Schoq]

that advice is a bit too general, but yes, you probably don't want such a slow swipe for your attack animation. in the end it all depends on how your game works

[BorisTheBrave]

The first frame was meant to be anticipation. I made it longer for the sake of looping, but I see that gave a false impression.

Will have another go. Sounds like everything I"m doing has too large a frame delay.