Jappio's RPG Sprites

[Jappio]

My friend and I are planning to create an RPG. Simple RPG-Maker stuff, and he has put me in charge of the sprites.

I am still pretty amateurish though, and would love any critique/criticism/comments people are offering.

So far I have an attack animation for one of his characters, and star of the game, Red Ryu:


I also have begun work on one of my characters, Raizou:

Don't worry, I know his axe isn't done yet. I'm saving detail on that when I work on the actual animation.

These are going to be used for in battle stuff. Simple "Select attack -> Character jumps in front of enemy and swings weapon."

A bit exhausting to think I also have 6 more characters I'll have to get to, but that'll come in time.

[Laphos]

It would look amazing if you made Red Ryus tail move just a little bit more while he attacks.

[Jappio]

Thanks Laphos, I see what you mean. The next time I'm working on him, I'll be sure to do something with the tail. I'm honored you'd think he'd look amazing after that. It means a lot coming from someone on a site like this, with so many other sprites that are so amazing (much more amazing than mine I feel).

Beginning work for Raizou's animation:



Sort of just the basis. I'm going to add inbetweens of course, but these are sort of just the extremes. Yet before getting to that, I of course want to make sure I'm not doing anything too wrong yet with pose/proportions.

Here are the stills:


Probably adding a frame or two between 1 and 2, and a frame with blur of course between 2 and 3.

[Koopaul]

The shading on Red Ryu's leg's seem to get strange when he animates. Nice work so far. I'm sure other people here will be able to give you some more in-depth advice on the light source of the legs.

[TheShyGuy]

There is no recoil shown in the Ryu animation after both slashes. After the first slash, his knees should start bending and his center should get lower. This is to both stabilize him and to ready himself to explode into the upward slash.

He also has no loadup on his second slash. He just slowly goes into it instead of charging and moving in a negative(?) direction before the strike. Without the loadup and recoil afterwards, the second slash seems very weak. During the slash, his whole body should stretch out upwards as if he was about to leave the ground.

After the second slash, he just reverts back to idle. This seems too abrupt and you should probably add a few inbetweens. In your game, though, you should allow the player to interrupt the animation a bit after the second slash so he doesn't have to watch the whole thing.

There's also no personality in the animation so far. Try to be a bit more experimental and exaggerate it alot to show it. Don't forget the facial expressions. Right now he seems stiff and lifeless.

[Brutus]

Hmm, now what kind of RPG is this going to be?

[Jappio]

Brutus, it's going to be a turned based RPG. It's going to have an active time battle system like Final Fantasy. It's the usual JRPG fair of mystical land, but with technology and junk too. Going to make sprites for attacks, magic, and idle images and stuff. I'm probably not going to do many enemy sprites if possible, just a RPG maker type project.

TheShyGuy, thank you very much for the thought out critique.

However I guess I have two general 'questions' I suppose.

One of them is with the added frames. I won't disagree that more frames would make it a better animation. However as a simple and quick attack animation for a turned based RPG, is more really needed? I mean the standard seems to be even less then what I did, with games like Chrono Trigger there were only like 2 or 3 frames for attacks. I've had people agree that a 4-6 frame type deal would be ideal for this type of stuff. I still feel so new to this stuff, so I just wanted to verify. I'd hate to do the extra work, but will if it's the definitive way to go.

As far as the exaggeration, I'll admit that is a weak point at times. Last time I tried branching out though, I was told to keep things simple while I"m still learning though too, and that I need to understand the basics first. I will definitely add some facial expressions, but I'm having a hard time seeing where to exaggerate, while keeping the realism intact.

[TheShyGuy]

Oh in that case, just ignore my advice about adding extra frames. I didn't know the type of fighting you were going for.

Hmm, for the exaggeration, I guess I was mixing my thoughts about it with recoil, explosion, etc. Like if that upward slash is/should reaally strong, it just might lift him off the ground.

[Jappio]

Tried doing some work with Ryu:



Hopefully it's good enough to move on, sort of itching to get back to the big dude.

[Hiynastrike]

When he lands he looked like just kinda hovered rather then jumped

[Jappio]

Finally got to fixing that. Now there's a bit more height and drop.



Also, a super big thank you to you all. I'm much happier with the animation so far. You guys are the best and I really appreciate the work you put into critiquing it and such.

[Hiynastrike]

what I meant is, when he lands It looks like he just was floating and carefully placed his feet on the ground. Logically his legs would bend a bit from the the force of landing

[GFA]

There seems to be a lacking frame in the upper body when he turns. Like, it's too sudden. But anyway, cool to see another spriter from PC here.

[Jappio]

I can't get a frame for his upper body actually, as it's supposed to be a quick snap like that due to the sword swing. However I did get some knee bending in.



Also, a really sloppy put together conceptual thing I made, to see what it'll vaguely look like in game (I'm not a programmer, so I put this together in a very inconvenient way.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5psTATW6zY

[Jappio]

Did some more frames for Raizou. Not sure how I feel about it yet, so I'm glad I haven't added details yet.