The VG Resource

this is speedo joe.
WARNING: large concept art.
created not long after I joined TSR forums he quickly became one of my favourite original characters.
I've been a bit of a passer by until recently and I'd like that to change, I think its the perfect character for me to try and integrate myself with the community with.

anyway, here is the sprite as is


EDIT: edit new punch animation, its looking a lot better but still needs some cleaning up
As always,
any and all comments and or crits are welcomed and encouraged.
Thanks for reading,
Bombshell

I can see the comparison XD
I'd very much like to see the deathmatch, big red ball vs walking steroids.

player 3 has entered the game?
also new walk animation

theres something a little iffy about it though I cant quite put my finger on it.
I've also found this cycle is handy as it works well for backwards movement too (thanks to the simple shape of his legs)

He should actually raise his feet instead of shoving them back and forth on the ground...

he does raise them, maybe I should have him raise them a pixel more, but I did find the main problem, me being a dopey bugger, I made him 2 pixels taller and his legs looked strange so long
EDIT:

Try to make him bend his knees a bit more. EDIT: In the walking animation I mean.

will do, I'll change it up a bit now, but in the mean time a minor edit to the back walk (so joe is looking behind him kind of)
also the still jump, the front jump and back jumps will be pretty much the same but with legs in different positions to show a different kick off

EDIT: I've fixed up the front walk but not the back walk, the lesser bending of the knees quite fits a back peddle, while the bent knees provides a better spring to the front walk.
I really want to get to the attacks, namely the specials, I want to sprite him skateboarding the motor bike XD
and if that doesn't give enough of a hint, joe was always mean to be a larger than life, over the top action character, a big beefy badass.

well about to go to bed ready for a very merry crimbo,

EDIT: first punch done... I think I may redo it, something about it seems crappy.
in the mean time I have started the first punch animation, I have the load and fire, room for 2 blur frames OR potentially 1 blur frame and a recoil frame, I think the recoil will work best, although its not shown in the sprites so far, joe is more a self shaped blob than a solid mass, so it'd be good to start showing his jelly side.

the main problem is that the legs are really stiff, there's no knee at all and it looks really weird, it should have some joint there seeing that the arm has elbows.

the animations could be made more bouncy to make him more lively, try redrawing the frames instead of reworking them.

also the bunch could use more range, don't forget that the 64x64 sprite limit are for size only, the animation can have bigger canvas.

by rework I did mean redrawing, and I completely agree on the legs.
bounciness I'm definitely going to work on, I've done a few revisions just experimenting and I think the punch needs to be further from the body (pushing away from rather than along side) the leg instead of being raised should be stepped (raised on the extend and planted on the recoil)
as for the joint, there is meant to be joint in his leg (as can be seen from the walk front animation and more notably the duck) its something I have issues with however given the shape of his legs (stubby and wide)

I also think I need to plan the attacks better, this was a good example of diving in head first, I just thought "punch" when theres obviously more to take into account than just a swinging arm, I'll go about this the same way I learned walk cycles, physically perform the action and observe.
So far what I've gathered is root of the arm should be aimed at the target to maximize the extending of the arm and that in turn leads to a lot of body turning (hence why I'm planning the next try to have a step forwards on the recoil, body turning (especially the scale of joes body) will lead to force on the hips creating imbalance if not compensated)

okay so I've tried the punch again, though I think it needs a bit more of a jolt and recoil, I'm liking it a lot better than the previous one.

It feels... weird, as if he were doing some sort of dance. I can't quite place it. Maybe he should hold the punch a bit, then let it loose? Right now it feels too much like a fluid motion that he's putting no power into.

I think it would look good if he followed it with a second punch, otherwise it just looks a bit odd.