Teemo from League of Legends!

[nelon]

Hello all. I joined up to learn a bit more about spriting and to get some much needed feedback on my Teemo sprite.
Here it is:
I just used the basic Photoshop "swatches" so of course the colours could use a lot of work. I honestly don't know where to begin with picking colours... Is it really okay to just adjust luminosity? Is this considered pillow-shading? Overall, it looks "acceptable" to me but of course there is a reason I am posting it here.
I think I screwed myself over by starting with something so (relatively) big... and perhaps screwed myself even more by starting to animate it:
with a mushroom
and
hopping
The "idle" one with the mushroom is simple enough; I just moved the body a few pixels down and "delayed" the feather. I don't know what else to change while keeping it simple. Any ideas?
Trying to animate him actually moving (walking, hopping) has turned out to be a real challenge. I don't know if this is the proper way of doing it but right now I'm just focusing on making the arms and legs look right and for this reason it's all centred and stuff. Do they?

Thanks for looking. Comments please!

[Gors]

hello!



as for the animation, smooth animation doesn't necessarily mean 'move one pixel each frame'. Focus more in making the animation lively: as now, his walking animation looks like a slo-mo robot. I suggest not doing animations for the time being, as it requires a lot of practice and you're still learning the basics.

[nelon]

Wow! I didn't expect this good of a response... Thanks for all of this. Shading in particular is something I've always had trouble with in art. I will definitely take this feedback and work on this little "project" (as well as spriting in general) more.

You're absolutely right about animating. The walking animation is and was nowhere near a refined state and I don't have the skill (or patience) to ever get it to that decent point beyond a "slo-mo robot." I simplified it to different body parts moving at certain rates and such and, of course, it's a lot more complicated than that.

Thanks again and hopefully I will have more stuff to post in the (near) future.

[SmithyGCN]

"Animation it's all in the timing and spacing. Strange that the Americans were the ones to work this out."
~Grim Natwick

So, yeah, not all animation is in one pixel movements for fluid animation.