idle battle animation

[Dave Gilbert]

Spent about 2 hours on this.  He is supposed to be in a "battle pose", but he looks like he is pelvic thrusting more than anything else!  Any advice appreciated.

[Hajjamujja]

He's leaning a bit too much forward.
Should go 1-2 pixels more back.

And also, he should crouch a bit when he's leaning the most forward and backward.

"bopping" up and down is included in almost every battle animation.
Just moving sideways looks kinda wierd.

[Dave Gilbert]

You mean like this?:





Changes:
- leaned him 1 pixel further back
- got  rid of the back & forth
- and made him bounce

To be honest, it's hard to say whether the up and down movement is BETTER or maybe I'm just doing it wrong.  Any further critiques are, as always, appreciated.

small edit:


The knee looked like it was zipping up and down the leg,soI shifted his heel a bit during the animation so his leg move a bit more naturally.

[Saberteeth]

Look, all you're doing now is just cutting the 3/4 of the character and just moving it a pixel down. try to do that AND at the same time keep the knee width.

[Dave Gilbert]

I hate animating. Oh yes I do.

I'll try your suggestions, Saberteeth.  In the meantime, here's my lil bandit throwing a punch.

[Saberteeth]

Again, the same problem. But now the whole foot is bigger when he punches. Why is that?
And start moving the feet in the 2nd frame, not just in the last one.

[Steel Drummer]

A suggestion for the original animation: 

The guy should be lightly jumping back and forth, not moving one leg.