need help with top-down walk cycle

[bog]

i'm having trouble with this. do the hands look weird? the feet? should the head move? should i use more frames?
also my attempt at shading looks bad i think

all your crits are welcome. thanks

[Ryan Timothy B]

I'd have his head turn left to right as he walks.

[bog]

new version:



i've added two more frames(it's 6 now) and changed the arms and legs a bit. do you think they look all right now?

i don't really know about the head turning sideways, that seems unnatural since he's supposed to go where he's pointed at(rpg game). i tried moving it back and forth but that just looks band. maybe only the hair should move somehow?

[Mr Flibble]

I'd recommend looking at a normal walk cycle for any character, and then use that as a basis for this. It'd help you find a natural position for the arms and legs in each step of the walk.

The new version looks far better though, I'd speed it up a little in the game but it should be okay visually.

[bog]

ok i've tried some shifting:

shifted the head 1 pixel
shifted the whole body except the legs 1 pixel
shifted the whole body except the legs by one and the head by two

the second one looks best to me, what do you think?

[Questionable]

Is this the actual size?

[bog]

these last ones are double the size. the whole image is 64*64 and i'm thinking of using 32*32 tiles. the character being bigger than the tiles is no problem. But i'm not sure this one will be in the game, i'm just trying to figure out how to draw and animate from this perspective

[lo_res_man]

I am getting the feeling, from the way the arms are moving, that they are showing a little too long to be human proportioned. In fact they look about almost all the way down to the knees. Try shortening the distance, and maybe make them a touch bigger.

[Questionable]

When I do a 50% reduction, I like the last the best. But, that's just me.

[bog]

i think i'm going to stick with the second one, the third seems too much right now

lo_res_man you're right, the arms do need to be bigger, i'm not so sure about the length though, so i posted both versions

bigger arms
bigger and shorter arms

(thanks for the replies everyeone!)

[TerranRich]

I dunno, the shoulders seem kind of pill-shaped to me. Try narrowing down the ends (the actual shoulder blades). Maybe add some shading to the back of each shoulder as its arm is forward in mid-stride.