I made a walking animation, would appreciate some critique and such

       

hey guys, this isn't an exclusive party in here

everyone's invited

I also made a back pos
y'know, if anyone's interested
   

I like the sprites, but while I'm not sure if it's part of the style or not, the arms seem to be missing the outline style of the rest of the body.

The left arm here is how I think they both should look.

Might I ask what's going on here? Are they zombies or something? Why are their arms so far out from their bodies? It looks super forced and uncomfortable. And are they both bow-legged? The animation itself is smooth, though.

I'm pretty sure it looks off-kilter on purpose. Can't you get that from the design? I mean, you still might have problems with the approach regardless of the intent, but the way you pointed things out makes it sound like you're misunderstanding some of the intention

It reminds me of tightrope walking with a dash of mysticism

...or something

Yeah, the awkward posture is intentional.
He's a bizarre jester-puppet creature, there's hardly anything natural about him.
I like to imagine the arms kind of like bendable pieces of wire jutting out of the side of his body (like pipe cleaners or something), so that's their natural resting position.
(and they're both the same character, just with varying amounts of clothing)

@Newegee:
I excluded the arm outlines because I had difficulty making a good looking outline for something so thin without making the stripes unreadable.
The way you did it looks pretty good though, I might try something like that.


thanks for the comments everyone

   

   

Here's another guy who is also walking. (He's a monk with a weird mask)

   

Another 'walking' animation; She's kind of wading through the air.

I'm thinking of making the arm movement smaller, but idk, what do you guys think?


Seriously, I would really love some comments

Personally I feel like it's sort of odd that the wispy, ethereal arms are propelling a very solid heavy looking rock, and interacting with the air in a forceful manner.
Im not sure what you could do instead though, and if you want to keep that I think the length of the arms is fine, any shorter and they would look stubby.

Yeah, this was really just the first idea I came up with. I could just make the arms stay by her side and only move slightly as she walks ('walks') instead, but idk.


I'll keep experimenting

if anything that arm should be like some kind of 'gas' that propels the boulder forward. Imagine jetpacks, but purple, misty waves and coming out from a floating boulder

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As for the jester character, more unnaturality could be achieved by making his head bob to the sides too instead of just up and down.

Actually, if the arms are solid enough to push the air, and the rock is floating without any friction between it and the ground, then it should be able to move, given the surface area of those arms. It might not be able to go very fast, but it can still go. If the rock were smaller, that would cut down on air resistance, allowing it to accelerate faster, but the large rock is good for storing momentum, making it harder to stop. The arms would be able to propel it even better if they were scoop-shaped, but given that there's no visible detail, it's impossible to tell if they are or not.

TL;DR: I don't think the arms are a problem.

However i am not questioning the physics of such action and its veracity. I am just saying what would be more interesting visually, and my opinion is that a rock propelled with a smoky arm with ethereal particles would look more mystical than a rock wading through with arms.

If you were questioning the whole physics of it, then this character shouldnt even exist lol!

So a lot of this is stuff that I've already showed before at some point, but here's most of the characters I've made for this particular project.
The people and fish guy at the bottom are all new, maybe some other stuff too. Any and all comments appreciated

Awesome stuff here! I love the contrast between your human designs and the other races. It really emphasizes the weirdness of the Jester creatures when the humans look so normal. Hmm...aside from that, no real criticisms here. You've got a nice look goin' on and it's interesting how you're able to pull of these designs without any shading.