The VG Resource

Here's a run animation






As for the chosen main character, I asked around and most people voted for the bottom-left because of the combination of purple and orange and the cape.

I would avoid the head turn animation for running. No one does this and it's something the NES/SNES did back then to give the sprites 'more liveliness'.

Overall the run animation looks stiff. He could lean forward some more, and have a slightly stronger bob.

what they said. give it more bounce, make the character lean into the run and dont bother with head turns. make them face forward but a head bob doesnt hurt if you want more movement in it.

Thanks! It's looking a lot more realistic now.


If it's all good, I'll finish polishing the details like the scarf.

Here's a vid of a scene in the game:
And also working on the antagonist. Pick your favorite palette.

Here's a bit of him in action. His name is "Doppelganger", an all-powerful mage who resembles the main character. And he is meant to be the final boss of the game. The animations I've got here is his idle and floating backwards.

Trying something new now...

Trees!

The run on the top post on this page is perfect, the timing and position has such a natural feel. Maybe too natural, almost like seeing your friend run. Weird but good.

I'm not a tree expert but I think those trunks look a little too thick for the leaves.

I like those first two best

I tried making the leaf pattern less random. And here's a willow. (Player for height reference)


I'm now agreeing that the trunk seems a little too big. Not too hard to fix.

I'm thinking I could bring the game to life by giving the trees subtle motion from wind.

It's a great idea, but (unless you plan on doing this anyway) why not go the extra mile and vary the length and intensity of each sway of the tree leaves?

I'd prefer not to have to make TOO many frames of animation since I'd have to do the same to all the other trees in the game and that sounds like an enormous task. Still, I might be crazy enough to try it...

What you can do is to program each of the 3 frames to animate with random durations. This will make the leaves move a little more naturally. Notice that you don't want to make the trees move too much because it will be really distracting to the eye.