Running Guy
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=18972
Printed Date: 29 April 2026 at 5:00am
Topic: Running Guy
Posted By: JackBread
Subject: Running Guy
Date Posted: 27 May 2014 at 11:59pm
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Hello, I'm working on an entry for the current weekly challenge. I decided on a naked guy running for his life while wearing a towel.
I just finished the base for it and I wanted to get some C&C on my animation before moving on to coloring him. Here he is: 
Head and body movement I'll probably do while I'm coloring him. I'm not entirely happy with the arms or the towel, right now. |
Replies:
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 12:08am
| If this is for the weekly you should put it in the weekly challenge comments. |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 1:34am
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Originally posted by Limes
If this is for the weekly you should put it in the weekly challenge comments. False, everyone is allowed to ask for specific critique in the WIP forums, always. Nice animation! Just the arms seem a little stiff, they can use a lot more movement! ------------- |
Posted By: Damian
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 9:32am
| Hapiel, he's holding a towel up :) |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 9:50am
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Originally posted by Damian
Hapiel, he's holding a towel up :) Woopsie, I should learn to read! Forget what I said before, he should have less arm movement! All possible remaining movement comes directly from the shoulder :) ------------- |
Posted By: JackBread
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 12:41pm
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Thanks, I'll fix the arms when I can.
Anything to say about the towel? I feel like I did it strangely, like it should only be flapping back, not sticking to the leg or something. |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 1:47pm
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Originally posted by Hapiel
Originally posted by Limes
If this is for the weekly you should put it in the weekly challenge comments. False, everyone is allowed to ask for specific critique in the WIP forums, always. But the challenge thread even says to put it there! |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 2:07pm
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Originally posted by Limes
But the challenge thread even says to put it there! Reread challenge rule #4 Posting WIPs in this thread or in new threads in the http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=8 - WIP section is highly encouraged, but ONLY SUBMIT YOUR FINAL ART. I don't want to be a rule-nazi, everyone can misunderstand things. Just trying to clear up confusion here :) --- I'd say that a clever guy has the opening of the towel on the side. Right now it seems to be a bit in the front. This seems strange... For the rest its fine I guess! Also, an idea is to make the air time longer! I made a little example  ------------- |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 28 May 2014 at 2:45pm
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Oooooh I thought the meaning was it was highly discouraged to post in WIP forum and in here would be better.
Not sure why... Anyways for suggestions I think he could be holding the towel up with one hand and then a towel on his head with the other but then have a few frames where the towel almost falls off and he reaches down to pull it back up. I suck at animation all I can say is it looks perfect to me. |
Posted By: JackBread
Date Posted: 29 May 2014 at 4:56pm
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Ooh, I didn't notice these last 2 posts! :0
Originally posted by Hapiel
I'd say that a clever guy has the opening of the towel on the side. Right now it seems to be a bit in the front. This seems strange... For the rest its fine I guess!Also, an idea is to make the air time longer! I made a little example
I had just fixed the towel myself, along with a left arm. I like what you did with the increased air-time and his right arm! I'll go about throwing those in! Here's what I've done with it, myself. 
The right arm looks alright to me, but I feel that it's weird to have it just appear on it's back swing. Originally posted by Limes
Anyways for suggestions I think he could be holding the towel up with one hand and then a towel on his head with the other but then have a few frames where the towel almost falls off and he reaches down to pull it back up. I suck at animation all I can say is it looks perfect to me. Thanks! I'm not too great of an animator, hehe. I can pretty much do only walk cycles on humans. (I've been practicing with other stuff, but it never seems to work out well...) This is my first attempt at a run cycle, actually. I like your idea, though! I'll see what I can do. :) |
Posted By: JackBread
Date Posted: 30 May 2014 at 9:00am
I'm pretty happy with this! The only problem I can think of is the motionless head, which should be fixable. Also, unrelatedly, but I don't want to post another topic, I'm working on a piece of art for my Youtube channel. The header image on the channel. 
I went pretty crazy with the dithering, hehe. I'm happy with how it is now, just a bit bare, which I'm working on. Also, I'm using Dawnbringer's palette for this thing. I'm not used to limited color palettes, but it's been pretty fun working out which colors to use. Also also, the way the channel art works, the middle part with my name will be visible on every platform, the sides around my name will be visible depending on a desktops' resolution, while the upper and lower parts will only be visible on a television. Another thing I'm going to mention is that this is going to be blown up 4x in the end, for the resolution Youtube recommends. EDIT: Wop wop, another update. I just colored him. Not confident in my shading job. Also I'm still considering whether or not I should keep the outlines black. 
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Posted By: JackBread
Date Posted: 31 May 2014 at 2:35pm
Almost done with him!
Just need to figure out the background. I think the building is passing by too fast, with one building per 2 strides, this dude is going pretty fast, heh. A couple of other things to do would be his hair and I think I should make his skin tones more vibrant or something. |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 01 June 2014 at 3:23pm
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Hi, Nice work! I see you already uploaded it, but I wanted to comment on this anyway: The colors are really dull. You also usea lot of them. Why is the face so dark? More contrast between skin and towel would help. The floor texture seems rushed. I addressed these issues here:  One handed run animation looks good. In the longer airtime pose you recreated it seems like his leg is shrinking in size, but except for that it is very nice! ------------- |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 01 June 2014 at 4:08pm
No it's not that his leg is shrinking in size, more that it's gaining some length/flexibility at the back. The knee is further from the hip than possible and that joint is also severely overextending. Our legs can go very high upwards at the front (try touching your nose to your knee, not that hard right?) but we can't bend backwards nearly as much.
And yes, that stuff still matters in cartoons, because we're subconsciously very aware of what a human body is capable of. But Snader! There are plenty of cartoons that have their legs backwards a lot! Like http://nickernewsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/wylie-coyote.gif - this and http://www.hoedlshaven.com/DISNEYMARATHON/images/DisneyRun02.jpg - this ! True. True. But none of those legs bend backwards a lot compared to the torso. Wile E and Goofy both have their body angled like //, while this near-nude runner is running with his body like \\. ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: JackBread
Date Posted: 01 June 2014 at 8:20pm
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Thanks, guys!
Originally posted by Hapiel
Hi,Nice work! I see you already uploaded it, but I wanted to comment on this anyway: The colors are really dull. You also usea lot of them. Why is the face so dark? More contrast between skin and towel would help. The floor texture seems rushed.I addressed these issues here:-clip- One handed run animation looks good. In the longer airtime pose you recreated it seems like his leg is shrinking in size, but except for that it is very nice! Yeah, I kinda rushed to finish/upload it since I was going to be busy for the most part, today, along with having a few other things on my plate. I made the colours more vibrant in my uploaded version, though not as much as you had made them, which I actually like better. Still trying to improve on my colour-picking. About the ground, I'm not too great at textures. I'm working at it, though, haha. Also, the face was dark because I imagined a light source from the upper right. I don't think I kept entirely to that light, though... And for the record, I was going for a cartoony style of running, which is why I angled the back backwards. Thanks for the criticism! I really appreciate it! |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 01 June 2014 at 10:13pm
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The angled back isn't a problem, that's physically possible ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc2UICvEbgI - 0:16~0:20 black shirt in the rear ) But it's that you can't bend your hip back that far, which makes the leg look fine. ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 02 June 2014 at 3:20am
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Originally posted by PixelSnader
No it's not that his leg is shrinking in size, more that it's gaining some length/flexibility at the back. The knee is further from the hip than possible and that joint is also severely overextending. Our legs can go very high upwards at the front (try touching your nose to your knee, not that hard right?) but we can't bend backwards nearly as much. And yes, that stuff still matters in cartoons, because we're subconsciously very aware of what a human body is capable of. But Snader! There are plenty of cartoons that have their legs backwards a lot! Like http://nickernewsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/wylie-coyote.gif - this and http://www.hoedlshaven.com/DISNEYMARATHON/images/DisneyRun02.jpg - this ! True. True. But none of those legs bend backwards a lot compared to the torso. Wile E and Goofy both have their body angled like //, while this near-nude runner is running with his body like \\. I don't think this is what makes it look awkward. This 30 degree stretch is when you don't open your hip to the side. If you are a bit more flexible and open your hip up a bit you can get the bend like in the animation. Yes, it looks like his back is \\ but it is not. It is only the chest that goes backwards, and by sending the chest backwards your belly goes to the front and this twists your hip backwards too, creating this shape )). That makes it even easier to stretch this far back.  ------------- |
Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 02 June 2014 at 6:27am
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What you're showing, however, is a passive pose, as in, the body is forced in that shape by the weight of the person. An active pose, where you're not supported/pushed/pulled at those joint, is much harder and has less range. It's possible as a pose, it's possible in a jump like ballet.
Don't get me wrong. It might be possible in a run but it'd be extremely exhausting, impractical, and implausible for the kind of person we're looking at. On top of that, in this animation the foot/toes would be pointing the wrong direction (as you said), the leg grows from the side of the hip, a several pixels away from where it should, and a couple more smaller issues. Making the hip bend less extreme would fix all of those problems. ------------- ▄▄█ ▄▄█ ▄█▄ ▄█▄ |