Sprite Progression

[Gors]

I also suggest you to avoid 1PX details, such as the texture on his shirt. When making pixelart, it's better to draw things in the most readable way possible, so i suggest making the drawing bigger



something like this. it's a suggestion though.

[Wulfre]

I have most of the colors done, but shading this is going to be the death of me

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And here he is with the guitar you start the game with. These will be separate sprites in the game, this is just a demo picture.

[Wulfre]

I redesigned the outfit a bit, but I definitely recycled too many colors, I need to learn how to pick them better.

[Wulfre]

When he walks, his guitar will be over the shoulder. How does this look? I want to make sure everything looks right before I attempt a walking animation.

[Kitsu]

Hmm, can I suggest that you change the color of the guitar? Right now, it's so similar to their skin color that they kind of blend together sometimes (in the case of the latest shot, I thought he was holding the guitar in front of his face at first, instead of behind him lol).

[Wulfre]

Starting the walking animation. This is gonna be difficult. How does this knee bend look?

[Vipershark]

Might I suggest a less eye-burningly bright background color?

A nice desaturated background color (preferably from a hue that isn't anywhere in your sprite) makes it a lot easier on the eyes, especially when you're working on it.

[Wulfre]

I can do that. I just stole the background color Koh used because it was easy enough to use.

[Wulfre]

So I tried to make that walking animation and well... this happened.

[Gors]

since i have no time for an actual edit on your work,

walking is a really lively animation. It moves all your body and for this dude here, it shouldn't be different.

First, let's understand what a walk is. Walking is to move with your two legs, one step at a time. You'll notice that at every second step, you'll be doing the same motion, and it'll repeat again and again every time you do two steps. This is because you have two legs, and each leg does one step. This means that no matter how many frames you use, a regular walk animation will have an even number of frames (2, 4, 6, 8 etc). (Using an odd number of frames will result in limping because one step becomes shorter than the other somehow).

Now the legs. The legs are made up of calves and thighs, and they both move when walking. The thigh rotates connected to the hip bone, and the calf, connected to the knee, does the rest of the arch. NOTICE that the calf will never bend forward. In other words, the knee will always point forward because if not i'll be a severely broken leg)

Another tip is not to be lazy. This is because many people like recycling whole sections of the animation when animating, and this is a really quick way to make anims. It's not wrong; but it works better for animations that don't move much. But if you do this with a walk animation, then you're being lazy, not quick.

Finally walking also means 'kicking the ground backwards to propel yourself forward'. So when the leg is in its most vertical position, his whole body will be lifted a little, causing him to bob up and down. This happens twice per walk loop, one for each leg. This ensures a lively and bouncy, but not unnatural and distracting walk animation.

[Codestar]

I've always found this quite helpful for explaining running/walk animations

[Kelvin]

That walking animation makes it look like it came from a very laid-back music video, you know? Like the character is just waltzing through life with everything happening around him, but he don't mind. I like it.

[Koh]

I think the head bobs way too much in that, lol. My head certainly doesn't do all that when I walk xD. But the rest definitely looks like a great way to improve the main character's animations here. I suggest shooting for 8 frames. It's not too much, but also enough to make smooth animations.

[Sketchasaurus]

I'll just drop this ref here, courtesy of the late Preston Blair:


The key is giving the character a walk that's readable(easy for people to understand what's going on) and believable(the character feels like it exists in a physical space and has mass) This is especially important if you want to have a character-driven story. you can always embellish and exaggerate the actions of a character for more energy and fun, but it's important to have a strong foundation for your actions. Have a friend act out the action and pay attention to the rhythm of the movement and the way that they distribute their weight. you could also quickly film someone acting out the walk so you have a reference you can go back to whenever you want.