I think you should go back to setting up the shapes for the forms and not get too into detail.

Here's your older body broken into shapes, shaded, and then since you studied anatomy you can see where the anatomy would go. Anatomy is like forms on top of forms. It's 4x, so probably too detailed but it can help spot where the forms are lacking, like your current guy is lacking in obliques making him look flat whether it's shaded or not.

Quick update, tried to break it down into rough shapes like JTF recommended:



Edit: Update, now with actual arms


Edited by AshCrimson - 14 November 2014 at 11:38am

Yeah you're right about the proportions. Checked them versus the 8-head Chart thing in Loomis' book and realised the pelvis/Crotch is too low.

Here's my latest edit:



Raised the pelvis/crotch, redid the left arm, redid both of the upper legs, the head, tried to define the torso and chest.

Hopefully the arm and legs look better, also tried to define the groin, not too confident on the result though. Tried not to concentrate on the shading, but more on the overall proportions and shape.

A key to the coloured lines (barring the orange ones):

Red: Indicating where the shoulders should be. For future reference, i'm using loomis' Figure drawing book and it says shoulders should be 1/3 of the second head line/bar thing.

White: Where the rear should be. I think i might need to raise it again.

Blue: Where the crotch should be.

Yellow: Where the hands should be, if both are resting down by the sides (might have made the arms too long, i'll need to recheck their proportions)

Thanks again for the drawing. It's true i need to work on and study more anatomy. I'm going to start again from scratch and focus more on the general shape of the body rather than just shading, as i'm probably focusing too much on that.

I'll post some of my smaller stuff when i get the chance, as I've been neglecting to do any of it recently.

IMO you're thinking too much in contained/individual shapes, separated by clear boundaries (and even lines) and focusing on clean/soft transitions. Humans aren't neat collections of shapes. They're a lot of complex interlocked small shapes (muscle mass), wrapped in a layer of very pliable and soft stuff (fat and skin). Shapes other than those where you can almost touch your bones, will be quite gradual and blobby.

So when you're separating shapes, you should use only a very thin line, or a gradual gradient, if even that. I made an edit:


And you'll see that in many places, like the pecs and abs I've not really separated bits that much. And things are lighter too. The darkest brown is all but gone, and the second-darkest is less, too. People, in normal lighting scenarios, are not high-contrast objects, because skin is soft, it diffuses light, and it is even sort of translucent.

Instead of that separation or smoothing, I used those pixels for actual detail such as the obliques/serrator muscles, or to separate hands and feet a bit into individual fingers/toes.

I'm sleepy now and have trouble typing properly so just look at the stuffs more. Ciao.


edit: updated the image url

Edited by PixelSnader - 27 November 2014 at 1:43pm

Quick update:



Apologies for pretty much copying what you did PixelSnader. I reduced the darker shades after you mentioned skin and how light falls on it.

I probably got too carried away with the serratus/obliques.

I feel disappointed as i don't think i've improved recently, but thanks for persevering with me.

The new stuff looks a lot less stiff and more natural. I think you're improving a lot.

One thing, when a character bends their knees they should be shorter than a character standing straight.

Thanks for the feedback both of you!

Are the limbs too long or short? I'm trying to keep them in proportion, but im guessing the small size is throwing me off. I'll also lessen the AA.

Thanks for the comment Eishiya, im going to re-do them, or at least redo the base until i can get it right as well as the proportions.

Just a FYI, im going by Loomis' head-proportion guide:



Or at least trying to adhere to it.

Thanks for the edit JTF!

I like some of the changes you've made in your edit, so i tried to incorporate some of them into three bases:



Main reason for three is because i felt the original one's body size, limb thickness etc made it look too strong or muscular, so made three ones:

Heavy = Strong Medium = Average Light = Weak

Just give some context and an explanation for my design choices in the past; the reason why the limbs have darker sections, for example the one i put an arrow next to on the light base, is because it helps to remind me of where the important joints (elbow, knees) are.

I'm worried that the changes to the legs might make it more difficult if i decide to animate these, so i made another set to the right with these on it, but im curious for your input on this because although i do like my current style, i am always interested in improving it if possible.

Apologies for the inconveniance.

Edit: Played around with it again and made some changes:



Made the arms less thick.


Edited by AshCrimson - 27 November 2014 at 11:21am

Apologies PixelSnader! Will buff up the legs. My only concern was that it might look disproportionately buff/big.

Damn, that's a handy little chart to have.

Some of the joint movement is iffy. If that's the elbow on the blue arm it's way too high. The white leg also appears to be telescoping into itself. One thing that can help is looking at your own movements or another person's in real life. So a mirror or a friend can be very helpful. And then get into those positions.

Don't be afraid of foreshortening

Have you tried making the motions yourself, and looking at someone else try them? I think paying attention to how you move through such an attack would tell you far more about what's wrong with your animation than any wall of text. When you do this, don't ignore parts of the body you don't expect to be involved. Every part of the body is likely to be involved. The legs will turn, the free arm will counter-balance or reinforce the motion, etc.

One specific thing I want to point out is that the sword-arm appears to bend in a noodle-like fashion rather than having defined joints. This is especially noticeable when it's raised, it seems to bend upwards right below the elbow, instead of rotating within the shoulder socket.

Evne if you had a mirror, it would be beneficial to feel the pose instead of just looking at it. Looking has its benefits, but it's too easy to focus on the details and specific parts of the body when looking, whereas feeling the pose as you do it makes it easier to understand what's moving and how. Of course, it's best to combine everything at your disposal when it comes to studying.

As for stiff motion - real humans make fluid movements with rigid limbs, and so can animated humans. Curving the actual limbs can make up for low framerates (or for the lack of real motion in still images, e.g. comics), but when you're working with animation, you shouldn't rely on it for the bulk of your fluidity. It should be something you apply at the polishing stage, not a part of your preliminary construction.
If it looks stiff at this stage, then most likely you're bending the various joints in an unnatural order, or your motion direction is wrong. Feeling the pose should help with both of those problems. This is an excellent... thing to read on the subject, as well. The general idea presented in those images applies to all the joints in the body, not just the arms. Some animators specifically break this order to make their characters look stiff or otherworldly/creepy.

Edit: Forgot to mention! It can help to draw the arms at their full width rather than sticks, but it shouldn't be required. Different animators work in different ways. However, sticks or blobs, the arm should be connected to the shoulder with a socket joint (that is, its end stays fixed and the rest of the arm rotates around that point), not something that bends.


Edited by eishiya - 04 December 2014 at 12:49pm

Tried to change up the positions by doing a reverse view:



I've probably messed up the lighting/everything apologies.

I really wasn't sure what to do in regards to the lighting behind the legs.

Quick update: I added hip movement, changed the position of the sword and the swing, also changed various things as well as the speed of certain frames as well as adding extra frames for more movement:

I'm in the process of reviewing my current small sprites (something i do every so often, just incase there's something that needs changing) and im off the opinion that the knees are in the wrong position.

Now i've consulted Loomis' 8-head proportion chart and i'm sure i'm doing something wrong, because according to the size of the head (not sure whether to include neck or the very top of the head/hair part) the body is over 8 heads, which makes me unsure as to where to position certain parts of the body such as the crotch, knees and hands.

Edit: I realise i've been counting it wrong But it's still sort of relevant, as im sure the proportions are still wrong (at least with the previous and current versions).

I know i shouldn't be a slave to the rules, but i also know the head-proportion system is pretty good for artists, so im unsure of what to do.

I've also got the problem of trying to keep the sprites under or at least at 32x32 (which fits the tiles i've currently made, i tried going up to 64X64 tile size but that was frankly too big) but without making them look too small or unintentionally dwarf-like or weak.

I can't upload my current version of  what im working on at the moment, but i will do so as soon as i can for reference. I've had to make the character bases 1-pixel shorter as well, to fit the 32X32 limit, as they were too big.

I also want to hear some other people's opinions on whether trying a realistic style at such a size is even possible, let alone practical. I've always liked the sprites in Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Advance and Tactics Advance 2, as well as in Tactics Ogre and the knight of lodis.

I feel their proportions are odd, resulting in a chibi-like style which i personally find difficult to emulate, although this is less pronouned in the Final Fantasy tactics, which has more detailed, larger sprites, but seem to be closer to chibi style than my attempts, although may be due to the perspective in the game..

Edit:

Here's the picture sorry:




Edited by AshCrimson - 20 December 2014 at 11:00am

Thanks for the comment, MrHai. What you've said in the other thread is definitely applicable to me as well. I understand that pencil is probably the best way, but i'm unfortunately pretty bad with the pencil im not as patient with it as i am with pixels.

I agree with you about the abstraction and whether it'd be worth going down the realistic route. I'm wondering whether i should reduce the anti-aliasing im using and rely more on pixel clusters? I really like Charlie pl's pieces, especially his GOT Oberyn Martell piece below, which doesn't seem to utilize as much AA as i've done in my previous attempts, and the way he's used the colours to give the impression of a flat service.

For example the light section of the chest, with the darker section conveying the stomach, or it does to me at least, is something i'd like to try as well. I am wondering if a similar style could be used with even smaller sprites, such as the ones i'm using?



Link to his piece below:

http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/88849.htm

Also tried to animate an idle motion that transitions into an attack, making it smoother and trying to make the legs look less stupid/wrong. Also played around with the shield and it's perspective.

I wanted to try to double the size of the smallest figure like i did before without going too crazy on realism and got this wip:



Spent a few hours and came i came to the realisation that anatomy will always be a problem for me and that maybe i should stick to the smallest figures im using.

Compare to my last attempt:



Apologies for the whining, but no matter how much i read up, practice drawing and trying to pixel it, i feel like i just don't "get it" and i feel like an idiot since im constantly running into the same problem.

Anyway, I also updated two animations; slashing and stabbing/thrusting (forgot to put weapons however):

Slashing:



Stabbing:



I'm hoping they look more natural, fluid and less exaggerated like my previous attempts have been.

Are these animations going to be used realtime or turnbased? Because if it's realtime your animation takes far too long to start. You'd press [attack] and only half a later would blade meet foe.

I couldn't honestly imagine how they'd work real time.