Walkcycle

[Questionable]

UPDATE:

Okay, so I took the advice below and simplified the image (actually I just stole ProgZ redraw) and I started animating slowly and patiently... It turned out like crap. BUT, I felt like I gained alot of experience with animating. The thing that seemed to work best was to animate the outline, fill in values and then just do a color overlay on a new layer. The only thing really being animated then is the outline and it's just paint by numbers from there.

So in my pursuit of a realistic(ish) walkcycle I came up with a new gameplan. I took a video of me walking, and semi- rotoscoped. using the process I stumbled on I was able to animate this little guy in about 3 1/2 hour. I did do it double size and reduced so there is probably some cleanup in order but I wanted to get an outside opinion on it; after pouring over this guy for HOURS I would appreciate any criticisms.



UPDATE 2: For some reason, the GIF is stuttering on the last frame and it's making him look like he has a PIMP walk... It's actually smoother than that. And his head is missing...

UPDATE 3: Will work on trying to make his jacket seem "less stiff."

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ORIGINAL POST:

So typically I'll focus on characters before anything else, then I make the rest of the world around them. I've really been wanting to make a throw back to my favorite noir films, so I drew something in my sketchpad, brought it into photoshop and sprited it up. No problems so far.

Then, I tried to make a walkcycle and for probably the past week I've been pushing pixel after pixel and its all crap. Either I get a really wooden walk where the character looks good, or I get a semi-decent walk where it winds up being a 10 color affair and you really can't tell WTF is going on.  I'm really not an animator at heart so maybe i'm going about this the completely wrong way and this is entire feasible.

What i'm really looking for is ideas on how to simplify the character without losing the integrity of it visually. Essentially I want to avoid it looking "cartoony" and I just can't figure out how to do that either; simplify without going cartoony. Keep in mind that all I have for background are thumbnail sketches so there is really nothing to "fit it into."

         

So any tips/tricks on animating a detailed character, or any suggestions on a different art style I could switch to before I get in too deep?

[Tuomas]

Well he looks great, but a hell to animate as you just said yourself. To simplify a sprite like this there are the points that are used in pretty much every thread here.

1. Reduce colours. You won't lose detail, just sharpen up the texture. You don't have a lot of colours, but as you're drawing frame two, you'll realise, that adding each of these shades of grey will be a pain in the ass. Make a tighter palette and keep to it. Perhaps a lighter grey, the dominating grey and a draker one for where it's shadowy.

2. Sharper outlines. To bring out the detail you mentioned. When done properly, it would not look cartoony but clean. Also, don't anti-alias your outlines or double pixel.

Hmm... ever considered making the vest inside a different colour than the jacket? Perhaps not too bright or it'd stand out too much, but so that the whole character wouldn't look like Mr. Grey.

Also, I can't see the side view and I can't open the image linked to. Are you sure you put it in right?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I think you've done a fine job with his presentation and shading.  The third image doesn't show up for me, though?  Perhaps what you can try is stripping him down to his base colors, animating him, then go back and add any detail you feel is lacking, like so:




Either way, good animation is work and that's all there is to it, whether you're animating a fully detailed hi res sprite or commodore 64 artwork, it takes practice and a lot of patience to make good things happen .

[Questionable]

Also, I can't see the side view and I can't open the image linked to. Are you sure you put it in right?

It's supposed to be a GIF of the current walkcycle. I think I must have saved it wrong because it's not working for me either.

I think you've done a fine job with his presentation and shading.  The third image doesn't show up for me, though?  Perhaps what you can try is stripping him down to his base colors, animating him, then go back and add any detail you feel is lacking, like so:

Prog... I think you cracked it. I stole your pallette and I'm about 3 frames in and so far I like it! I'm not sure if I'll even ad any detail, it looks pretty decent!

Thank you both! Problem solved.

[TheDude]

You might want to try these in Photoshop:

Image > Adjustments > Threshold > Adjust the slider

or

Image > Adjustments > Posterize > Keep number under around 7.

These are good helpers for simplifying, but they won't do the whole job for you.

[Questionable]

You might want to try these in Photoshop:

Image > Adjustments > Threshold > Adjust the slider

or

Image > Adjustments > Posterize > Keep number under around 7.

These are good helpers for simplifying, but they won't do the whole job for you.

O-I-C...  I didn't know about those. Threshold seems to turn my images black and white but I'll play around with it a bit more, and that posterize is pretty handy! Thanks for the tip.