Protagonist (American boy) - Side/back walkcycles are the bane of my life!

[Scavenger]

I'm trying to make a short game, but my protagonist's walk cycles seem to be bugging me quite a lot. I can do the front, but the side and back views are seemingly impossible.

Here he is:

I have him in three different outfits so I could make his poses look more natural (as it's easier to put clothes on a sprite and have it look right, imo, especially with his reaching up front pose). The fact that he has no eyes is intentional - I've never drawn him without that hat.

So, what do you think? Any comments on the sprite? How can I do the side and back view walking frames? Especially the back view. I can never make that look right. Thankyou ^^

[Sparky]

I'm not an experienced animator, but here's how I'd aproach each cycle:
Don't worry about details, just quickly scribble the character at first.
Draw a basic view of the character between steps (neutral height)
Copy the basic view, shift it down a pixel or two and rearrange legs/arms (for the downstep)
Make another copy, shifting the basic view up a pixel or two, again redrawing the legs/arms (for the high point when the character is beginning a new step)

That will give you key frames for half of the walk cycle. The other half can be based on the first. Play around with that until you like it, and then start doing the actual drawing and any in between frames you want.

I hope that addresses your question. If you were wondering about something more specific, I'd be happy to try and help out.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Here is a quick up walk cycle to give you some help.

The important thing to help simulate upward motion is to foreshorten the legs on a down step.