The VG Resource

and not in that stupid spyro orange thing
wow i really need to be more active here i'm sorry guys! i just make topics then disappear for a while
i'll (try) not to do it this time hehehe
anyways i want to try and make a sprite sheet of spyro because i've never really made one before... so i'm showing you guys the base sprite before I go on to a walk cycle or something.

The snout doesn't look properly centered, at least it appears to point in a different direction than the eyes. I think the contrast could be increased and you could use your darkest shade for the eye outlines to make them more defined (it's right eye's outline merges with the shading). The corner of the cheek looks a bit jaggy where it meets the wing and the shadow could be smoother, too. Furthermore, the second wing should be somewhat visible!

increased the contrast and messed with the shading on his cheek - i don't understand what you mean by his snout not pointing the same way, perhaps it was the lack of contrast unable to show the plane of his snout? either way, i fixed it up and started on some other spyro things

sparx looks a bit off to me, but i added a little glow around him cause he glows if it looks too tacky, i can get rid of it.
i added the gems, YotD style. I feel like 5 colors per gem is a bit too much though, but i don't know which shade to remove that won't mess with the shininess...

I'm not going to lie, your Spyro looks like he got a place in My Little Pony.
Is it intentional?

that's probably accidental, seeing as my own style for drawing spyro is pretty MLP-esque. I don't know right now if I want to go for a canon style or my own style for this little sprite sheet, though i'm leaning towards my own. Still, any way to make it less MLP would you say?

Sparx's body needs to be much longer. atm he looks like one of the baby dragonflies that you have to rescue.
I also feel the glow looks a little odd, but it may be that the transparent background doesn't help.
and about Spyro, his legs are too much like a horse's, and should be shorter. are you using a reference? I found a really good one here. his legs are thicker and kind of short.
the eyes are also too close together, like Yoshi. his belly is also too straight/flat. it should have a little bit more curvage towards his backside.
I would also make his hind legs a bit bigger/longer and add heel to them.
fix those things, and we'll go from there. I'm really excited to see someone spriting Spyro. the old series deserves more love.

alright, fixed up his legs and his face! i removed the glow from sparx and also fixed up spyro's hindquarters a bit. I also slimmed down his snout a bit, because it tapers a bit. probably won't shorten it though, since his snout is pretty long. i didn't know how exactly to fix the belly issue, but i did make it look a bit more thick, i guess.

i should really get to work on simplifying the palettes of the gems...

(03-05-2013, 06:24 PM)Turbo Wrote: [ -> ]i don't understand what you mean by his snout not pointing the same way

His eyes appear to be facing towards the camera more than the snout does. There's probably too much visible from the far eye. Your new versin has the snout pointing evem more to the right as you borught the nostrils closer. What may also contribute to the impression is that the snoud doesn't really pop out where it meets the face as the line blends in with the face a lot, maybe you should use the darkest shade there, too.

hopefully that fixed the plane issue. his eyes are a bit closer again, but i feel like that's a minor error compared to the direction his head is facing :P thank you for the clarification btw, i was unsure if his snout was pointing too much to the side or towards the viewer.
now, sparx looks atrocious, but i don't know how much i can fix in how tiny he is. i also reduced the palletes for the gems and repeated some colors within them!
while i figure out what to do with sparx, i suppose spyro's ready for a walking animation, or at least an idle animation.

I can't really tell if Sparx should be any longer or not, but I feel the end of his body should be more rounded.
other than his wings blending into the forum's background, I think he looks fine.

I'M NOT DEAD I JUST SUCK AT WALK CYCLES

it's a real beta, but this is my first walk cycle ever so i only have the close legs done.

Just as general advice, look up plenty of reference for a walk cycle, whether it be watching footage of lizards walking, or Spyro walking in game. Comparing footage of key frames with mapping out your own walk cycle make it a lot easier

The front leg is looking like a good start, the back leg is hard to critique since it doesn't have a same animation fidelity as the front, making it a bit off putting to look at.

i tried again. I have no idea where to start with this x.x

For some of the frames I realized I can use the idle frame's legs so they're outlined completely. I did the whole thing on another layer this time so it won't be as confusing.

Looks very promising! The movement looks great, but since you don't have everything else blocked out just yet there's not much more I can give you What program are you using for animation by the way?

I'm currently using ASEprite as both my animation and pixel software. I quite enjoy it so far!
Anyways, i decided to redo the animation AGAIN by making a skeleton of the animation before i go over it. I tried to make it more airy and jumpy like in game when he runs (not charges) but it looks more like a gallop ;n; should i slow down the animation by making more buffer frames? or what else?

i'm quite proud of the tail flapping though.

edit: I removed and added a few frames and tweaked it so the back legs moved in more of a circle. i also added a "ground" to show how he kind of leaps as he runs. the animation is also slightly faster.