The VG Resource

I'm planning a game, I've got most of the base engine ready, only a simple 2D platformer.
I've been trying different styles of sprites, I'm not an amazing sprite artist, but I think I'm good enough to get by, hopefully tips and tricks I pick up here will help me.

Anyway to the point, I need advice on animation and a general criticism of my "prototype" sprite.
Here is a link to the concept sheet used for spriting, as you can see I've not thought out clothing much, 3 quater lengths a cap and t-shirt is all I have atm. I've got face shape and hair thought out... nothing crazy, just scruffy hair and strong cheek bones.
http://pushbombshell.deviantart.com/art/...-289363671

here is the prototype sprite


animated:


purely for reference here is a sprite sheet for another project of mine, so you can compare styles
http://pushbombshell.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4ib64f

any and all help is appreceated,
Thanks in advanced,
Bombshell

The darker reds seem way undersaturated compared to it's more vivid highlight color.

The checks on the hat also could use more contrast, and should prolly bend with the curvature of the hat.

the colors in your sprite aren't interesting at all. Make use of contrast to make the shades 'pop', and don't be aftaid to hueshift a bit.

updated,
hue shift, messed with contrast and shading,
added amulet, changed shoes colour, added backpack, may mess with shoes again.

updated slightly, and I'm trying to get the style of the tiles ready, but as you can see its not looking the best.

i dont really get how is he standing. or why you decided that a gray would be a good color choice for the outline. it seems more like you picked the color from another sprite's palette and shaded based on it.

if you wanted the outline to blend more with the shading, you should pick colors on the same range. otherwise the skin and the pants stand out way too much, defeating the whole "blending" you were trying to achieve.

the way hes standing I'm aiming for something like the idle stance from this sheet.
http://www.uploadimages4free.com/upload/...-14136.jpg
I think I need to re arange the arms, probably resize them too as they look a little thick when you compare them with the legs.
I'll tone down the red, and I just noticed the problem with the outline, it was a mistake when altering the colours, I'll fix that too...
poof


EDIT:
I'm still fiddling with the left arm, crit as you like towards it regardless

the problem with the pose you are using now is that it looks like your character is about to make a step, but stoped halfway. it would be quite unnatural to stand that way for anyone.

The pose reminds me a lot of this, actually, and that's not a good thing. Take another look at your pose reference. The back foot in that is flat on the ground, and facing towards the screen, which is much more natural than facing forwards and raised. The far arm, too, is different. In your pose reference, Sonic holds it down, and close to his body, where you have it sticking out. In fact, Metaru has pretty much got it down with his blocked out pose. I recommend looking at that and trying to see why it is better.

I see what you mean the weight is centred in front of his footing.

is this better? left is new, right is old.

EDIT: just read Hoeloe's post I'll work on the footing now.
Thanks everyone for the crits, its helping a lot

the reason why sonic is drawn that way is because, character wise, he's meant to be always ready to run.

on your character it simply doesnt work. its out of context.

Well I'll go back to the drawing board for poses if you think its necessary, but I'm not sure what pose for idle would be appropriate.
to make a long story short,
the character is in a rush, chasing down some bad guys to get one of the good guys, not trained in combat, uses magic and stuff.
So if any pose he'd need to be alert with arms free,

would this work? (the ground I'm just messing around with dithering patterns, so you can ignore them for now.)
The frame line on the right is the new pose, the guy to the left is the current pose.

---

I've fleshed out the frame, the pose seems to work better, makes the character look younger but using that particular frame animating will become a great amount simpler, story is still in the making so a little age loss isn't catastrophic.

if you're in a rush, you tilt your torso foward because that way you can push your own weight towards to gain speed easily.

Noted, but he doesn't exactly look laid back in the latest revision, he looks alert enough, I may altar him later if needed,
Anyway I've been working on a running animation and I've tested it, it seems to animate very well, atm its only the frame outline,

animated:


I do think I need to mess with the arms though, they get a bit jerky, the legs seem to animated smoothly. Oh and I need to move the frames so the centre of the frame is always the planted foot.
EDIT: ^ is done ^

for starters, when animating walk/run cycles, you should keep the head in a constant y position, or simply put, it shouldn't slide to the sides, but rather up and down.

Also it looks like a unusual way to walk/run; the arms don't swing enough for a run, yet the leg opens way too much for a walk. Not to say the feet makes contact too near the body, which means there is no decent sideway movement.


Check other walk animations and study them. Don't be afraid of checking animation tutorials.