The VG Resource

My spriting skills are very basic and I ran into a bottleneck when I attempted to animate a simple knight to swing his sword.  I ended up with his sword just moving up and down instead of down and across his body, like swinging a bat. I can picture how it would look in my head but have difficulties when it comes to transferring that to the canvas. If someone could suggest on how to approach it or show me or really just how to improve my sprite I would appreciate it.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&...3176007406

Here is a simple sword swing from LOZ GB games

Thanks but it seems that the sprite's perspective is different and the sword is sticking out of his body to begin with which does simplify things since you just have to move it back and forth, and is not "on" the sprite's body as mine is. 

Try the Zelda 1 sword attack because it seems to be the closest to your style. I hope this helps you: http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&...4908329066