my first character - c&c and help needed

[poe]

With Photoshop I drew some pixel graphics of a character with a resolution of about 50x70px and 256 colors (or even less). I tried to make my character look a bit like Tim Burton's "Vincent", in fact also with a weird hairstyle, striped sweater and so on.

Now that I created the front view I tried to draw the other perspectives, side and back. I am not very happy with the result of the side view because it makes the character's face look flat and his chin seems to be wrong. I can't figure out how to manage this...

Further more I got a big (or should I say huge) problem with walking animations. Sometimes one foot seems to stuck in the ground and the other one is too big in relation to the feet when standing (look at the side view, that's the way they should be).

I personally like the big head in comparison to the almost small body and tiny feet. I wouldn't say that I don't want to change that if its neccassary to make the character look better (YOU are the professionals, not me) but I just want to mention that it's not only a coincidence.

However, it would be really great if you guys could help me to fix the side view and the animations - or tell me what's wrong. As I said I tried my best and these cheap animations are all I could do so far.

btw: what do you think of the character in general?
okay, now I stop talking, it's your turn...





I would appreciate when you ignore the speed of the animations - I know they run too fast but that's only a problem of the .gif ani.

[Marley_brother]

Nice char.. The animations looks a bit weird but i shouldn't say anything, i can't do better.. 

[Johnny Odd]

What you really need is to move all of the character rather than just his arms and legs - his shoulders - his hair - give him a 1 pixel bobbing up and down as he walks - and move his arms on the side view...
...It's a nice char. 

[poe]

What you really need is to move all of the character rather than just his arms and legs - his shoulders - his hair - give him a 1 pixel bobbing up and down as he walks - and move his arms on the side view...
...It's a nice char.Ã, 

thanks for your suggestions! I know that the whole character has to move but I was not able to realize that without making it seem even more unrealistic than now. If I got some time I try it again today and show you what I mean...

Any suggestions for the side view or others for the animations?

[kaaZ]

I like the character design...but like you said, the animations could be better...especialy the front and back animations...He's stamping his feet on the ground instead of walking...If he'd walk like that he'd be on the same spot for ever...He should be moving his legs back and forth, not up and down.....The arms however come closer to the desired effect...though they could still use some work...on the front view it looks as if he's slapping his hands on his hips....the back view looks better though....After you get the arms and legs right...you could try to add a bounce and add other details...but for now make sure you get those arms and legs right....

Cheers!
kaaZ

[Phemar]

Absolutely ANY reason to post these: http://www.sylpher.com/kafka/tutorials.htm

Hehe...

For the side view make his chin jut out a bit more...yes, like that...good...

[poe]

especialy the front and back animations...He's stamping his feet on the ground instead of walking [...] on the front view it looks as if he's slapping his hands on his hips

I absolutely agree to that, I got the same impression. I know it looks cheap but as I said this poor little stamping and slapping of the arms to the hips (it should look more than the back view) is the only animation I could do so far... Maybe the resolution should be higher? I don't know. It's even hard to draw lines without having to put every single pixel onto another in 50x70 px. It should be easy but I'm not able to create for example feet in the animation that look similar to the feet while standing in the front view.

@Zor© Ver. 2.3:
thank you! I knew these tutorials but I didn't check them all, so I just found an interesting tutorial there about the animations of front and sides. Maybe it helps me to create a better ani one day... after days and weeks of struggling with my unability of pixel drawing.

I just failed at creating a proper chin (once again). Know I found out that in the current side view the jaw looks pretty unrealistic, more like a bump on the side of the head (do you see it?).
Maybe you could make a quick edit to the pic, Zor© and show me what you exactly mean with your suggestions concerning the chin? That would be really nice!

[poe]

well, no reply...

but anyway, I tried to create a new walkcycle for my character. what do you think of it?

before
after

these colors are only used to make the arms and legs more visible, so don't pay attention to them..

[Privateer Puddin']

Please no more floppy hads, sure erics tut has them, but its just to show a secondary movement..

[poe]

sorry but why shouldn't hands move? when you walk there is always a movement of the hands. it would probably look strange when the hands would stay in the same position in each frame... or do you mean something different?

[YOke]

People are a bit sensitive about floppy hands around here...
They do move a bit too much, and it looks like he has his palms facing backwards, instead of towards the body like most people.
You have given him a fast and bouncy walk, but his body is completely stiff, with straight lines. You should concider dropping his shoulders down a bit and squiggle his lines up a bit. Just some thoughts.
I really like the character! Good hair!

[poe]

People are a bit sensitive about floppy hands around here...
They do move a bit too much, and it looks like he has his palms facing backwards, instead of towards the body like most people.

obviously you're right but that's the way it was presented in this tutorial:


so should the hands just hang down in a straight line with the arms or should they move at least a bit?

You have given him a fast and bouncy walk, but his body is completely stiff, with straight lines. You should concider dropping his shoulders down a bit and squiggle his lines up a bit. Just some thoughts.

sorry, I can't imagine what I should exactly change.. his shoulders move all the time, in fact they're just at a lower position than the neck part. what do you mean by "squiggle his lines up a bit"?

I really like the character! Good hair!

thanks!

[YOke]

1.
Yeah... Eric made that tutorial, and he's apparently been sorry for it ever since.
IMO: Moving the hands is not really a must when it comes to making a good walkcycle, but it helps if you want to make a GREAT walkcycle. The character is also a bit small for such a dramatic motion. If you want to move them, just nudge then a pixel or so forward, when he's moving the hand back, and back when he moves his hand forward. Then you will add sense of weight to the hand.

2.
Sorry for being a bit unclear...
Right now his body is basically a cylinder.The straight lines vertically (and the horizontal stripes on the sweater) makes him look very rigid. (uptight, even)

If he's a uptight character he should slide more, with a calm and controlled walk.

If he's a jolly fella, his lines could be a bit more messy, with a fast, bouncy walk.

Right now I feel you have the limbs of a jolly fella on the body of an uptight guy, if you know what I mean?

If you want to make him jolly, try giving his body more of a bell-shape. A bit narrower at the shoulders and a bit wider at the waist.
If you want to make him uptight, make his motions more controlled, and less dramatic.

I hope I made more sense this time. I'm afraid that I didn't...

[MrColossal]

I dunno...

Hehe this time I think the character is cartoony enough that it might just fit...

try adding 2 more frames to smooth it out and if you're going to keep the floppy hands i'd recommend making sure the flop starts when the hand is coming back down.

if you know what i mean?

if not i'll elbaroate later

[poe]

@YOke: ok, I think I got it! so the character is actually a very calm one, maybe this kind of motion doesn't really fit so well but I just can't imagine how to do it in a different way. maybe I should try a few things out (I don't think results will be satisfying but anyway).

@MrColossal: why should I add two more frames? I already got 2 keyframes and 4 inbetweens to smooth the walkcycle out. the flop of the hand starts already when the hand comes back down...

maybe I got a bad visually imaginative power concerning your descriptions - I just don't get it...

[Phemar]

http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/facepaint.bmp

Just changed face colors and added shading...

[poe]

looks good (nice idea with the eyebrow!) but I think the skin tone is way too dark. my character is very pale and in fact more thinking than evil if you know what I mean.

[poe]

alright...

I created a new walkcycle without floppy hands. as you may see they're too big but ignore that - i already know. i can correct that later on, it's important now to figure out what animation is better... the old one or the new one:

--edit: I created a second version of the "new hands" animation, it's the third pic..

floppy hands
new hands v1
new hands v2

[pixelcat]

I like the second animation a lot better, especially with the new hands.  Only real problem I can see with the animation is the feet seem to change shape and size quite a bit.  Looks nice and smooth, though.  Cool character, btw.

[kaaZ]

Obviously this walkcycle is getting much better...the thing that's bothering me is that it rather looks like a runcycle...So I opened the animation in imageready, changed the frame interval to 0.2 and it still looked like a runcycle...Though I have no clue why, since you did a paintover on Erics tutorial....which doesn't look like a  running person at all....



I matched Erics frames to yours and they quite look the same except, on yours the upper part of the legs are kind of missing....so that could be the reason why yours looks like a runcycle ?