So Ive decided to chase my dream of making my own fighting game. Heres the first animation Ive been working on, some of the crits Ive received so far address the over-movement of his legs and the under-movement of his right arm. If I could get some suggestions on how to fix those I’d really appreciate it.
I don’t have any problem with the over-movement of the legs. The movement of the arm isn’t the major issue, it’s the positioning of the gun and how he’s holding it… it’s unnatural, like his wrist would be breaking. The fact that it’s animated makes it easier for most people to notice problems in the pose. I would say the best fix would be one of two things, both would make the overall image more dynamic. The dimensional flatness of the rifle is killing you… you could probably keep a similar orientation and make it work better if you flipped the bottom of the gun up toward the viewer, so the side we see now is facing upward and the trigger guard is pointing toward us with his right hand redrawn to match that. Or, the other option is to bring the barrel of the gun toward camera and tuck the back of it away from us more.
The quality is great though, so I’d love to see future updates and offer any advice you may want.
i have to agree about his left hand and the position of the gun. this looks amazing so far. how long did it take you to do this?
Not very long actually… I may just start over with a different process though.
it looks like his is inflating and deflating rather than moving.
I think his left shoulder moving outwards is what’s making it look a little more like he torso is inflating rather than the breathing you were going for. I’d also suggest putting a little movement into his lower legs if you’re going to have his thighs moving as they would naturally move to compensate.
Looks really cool though. I like the style. Can’t wait to see more.
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/6172/fixex.png
possible fix on the pose, tilt the gun up a bit fix the left arm angle and have the front of the gun turned more toward the viewer. Yes, no?
grrr image not working lol
Sounds like a plan.
yes on that idea. he looks like he’s grabbing the gun instead of holding it. i agree what mr list said, he does look more like he in inflating/deflating instead of moving (or breathing for that matter). What if you made subtle movements like the arms not holding the rifle 100% still, the up and down oscillation, but just not exaggerated and done fairly slowly.
Check out King of Fighters, they got great looking sprites.
I think that the problem is that his legs have the same “flow” than the breath. Think about that two action separatly, u dont move the legs when u take the air. U can play with the head a bit, making him to look from one side to the other. Or the feets , like if he was changing the “weight” from one leg to the other, like in AOS’s king of fighter sprite.
The pose is cool, i think its nice the way he grabs the shotgun, he is holding it, not aiming, or shoting so that pose is nice,maybe the wrist is a bit forced, but only a bit.
Love the desing is sooo cool, what about give him a bit of personality with a tatoo, or some detail in the trousers or shirt,the clothes are cool but seems a bit “flat”
keep it up
Well his design originally had plaid on the shirt (which I may add later) but on my original sprite it took forever to do the plaid. Ill go ahead and post some of my concepts for a few characters. The chick I may change to look a bit more old western as this game is going to be set in an alternate late 1800s America. Anachronisms will be included but it might help her design out if I change it to look at least a bit more like from the time period.
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2672/texi.jpg
That woman looks dope.
What programs did you use to make the pixel art? I’ve wanted to do something similar, but I had no clue where to start.
I just used gimp but photoshop can be used as well. Just work at whatever resolution you need and use the pencil tool. I’m working at 640x480 cuz that’s all fighter maker can run at.
I used Vanguard Princess sprites as a size reference because I like how big on the screen they look at that resolution. To do the animation in gimp is easy because you can just use each layer as another frame. But really the animation is just to determine how it looks so far. Ill have to save each frame individually or put them all on a sheet for when I actually use them.
nice but dudley wants his old clothes back 
how about in the original sprite u amde having the gun arched over his back, kinda tauntingly that would fix you’re problem great looking sprites btw what programs u use?
looks good
before/after
http://img807.imageshack.us/img807/6721/texbasesprite2.gif
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/5827/texbasesprite4.gif
Took me a while to get it looking decent, I first fixed the hands, then tried to figure out how to add a slight bouncing motion to his hands at a different pace than his body (kind of like Rufus’s stomach or countless characters’ titties). I took out one frame of his shoulder moving out so thats not as bad, and spread the extension throughout his legs to make it less noticeable and no forward movement of the legs. I think Ill make his hair bob up and down a bit then it should be finished.
not trying to be negative nancy but his knees are moving up and down vertically while his feet don’t move.
bones mean that isnt possible.
Yeah, you could probably take out a little of the movement in the lower legs. You can use a reflecting specular or surface on the gun to add some life to that part of the sprite. I’ll show you what I mean later, if you’re curious.
Here’s some inspiration for firing animations! Because the one hand reload spin from Terminator 2 was the best thing to ever happen to a shotgun. [media=youtube]1BxbTSaxduA[/media]