Hmm, this is a great start! I'll take my hand at critiquing it, though.

I really like the torso and his right arm; those parts are probably the strongest. His head seems a little small, though, and even though his head is leaned down, we should be able to see some form of the neck. His legs seem a little off and maybe too short. His right leg (the one on the far left) could lean out farther with the foot planted on the ground to give him more balance. Pulling out the knee slightly on the other leg also would give the pose more dynamic. 8Da

Unless he's running, I suggest you look at a shotgun stance reference pic for correct posture:



Notice how one leg points toward the viewer, and how the other is directly sideways. Make the legs a little wider and we have a revised version of your intended stance. :)

I would avoid the slumped posture of the torso, seeing as how it's a little distracting, and you've pretty much got the arms down pat.


Edited by W M - 12 July 2010 at 12:48pm

Ok , I gotcha now -- it's an idle stance for  a walk/run animation. I would still bring his right leg back closer to the body and maybe shorten it a little -- it seems a little long when compared to his left leg.

I like how it's turning out

Yeah, his actual right leg. I was wondering if I worded that too ambiguously

Definitely love the progress made on this! It's shaping up to be a great sprite. :D

I'm not sure on his new eye, it kind of looks like it's glowing. I prefer the original dark area to the lighter eye. Hm hm hm, maybe you can try to darken his jawline a little and put some stronger shadow just beneath it on his neck. The might make the face more distinguishable.

Right now, the dark outlines on his clothes seem odd next to the much more subtle outlining on his skin. The outlining could be either darkened on his skin, or lightened on his white clothes.  I'm also not so sure what's going on with his left hand... maybe use your own hand as a ref? I'm pretty sure we should be looking at his pinky, ring finger, middle finger curling up onto the barrel? :0

UPDATE: Walking animation. So far I only have the legs and the lower half of the body. I'm planning of working on the upper body as well. But I don't know exactly how the upper body would move with this kind of motion. So I was hoping you guys could give me a few pointers on what would happen if he were walking like this.



Sorry for the weird green background, transparency was leaving a trail for some reason. But let me know what you think of it.

Thank you. It took me about 2 days to finally get that done.
What should I do with the upper body? Or is it fine? Because I don't think it looks quite right.

Perhaps he can hold his shotgun more upwards while walking.

Much like
(credit to Rybar)

Edited by Mr Blu - 16 July 2010 at 8:23am

Yeah, I was showing my friend yesterday, and he mentioned that the arms were way too long as well. So it looks like I'll need to fix that. And the shotgun being raised higher, I think it should be good like this, it is a shotgun, and he is shooting infected people from short distances, so I don't think he'll need to have it raised much more. And plus, when he actually shoots is when I might change how he's aiming. But I can see where your coming from.

why worry about animation before the proportions are correct?

the entire upper torso is huge. the arms, shoulders, head (as an aside, the way you're positioning the neck makes him look like a hunchback). The proportion of the arms in relation to the head is ok , but that whole segment's relation to the lower portion is off. Waist down is fine in it's own right too, just a different size than the upper half of the body.
It's like someone zoomed in on just the upper half.

I see what you mean, and I understand how it might look weird to you. But considering that I'm shorter than average, and I used a photo reference, I don't want to change how it looks. And the reason his neck is like that, is because he's bending his head down as to aim down the sights a little more.

And Zeratanus, seeing your edit, it looks good, and now I can more see the proportions, but when I compare the two, I am a little more fond of how mine looks. I'm not looking for perfection on this sprite, I kinda like the out of proportion upper half.

I appreciate all your advice, but I think I want to keep him as is.

Well, even a toddler (or a midget) wouldn't have arms that long. And compare how broad his shoulders are compared to his waist.
if you don't want to fix the anatomy just say so, being shorter than average has nothing to do with it. the problem is not the height of the figure but the proportions- the size relationships between the various body parts.

the neck seems like it was just move down vertically from where it should be, the angle of the neck and the muscles that make it up haven't changed to show that it's bent. Keep the neck's relationship to the spine in mind.

I don't have a problem with "I like it out of proportion"- though be aware this screams "this is an excuse! I don't want to work on this!" to many people. I don't think the wacky proportions were your intent, since you didn't state that as a goal in the first post. And there's nothing wrong with liking them, but I wonder- why is it that you do like about the unnatural proportions? What do you think this adds to the image? What does it convey to the viewer/player, and why do you want to convey this?

I already have shaved off a few pixels. But the thing is, when you guys say all those proportions look wrong, I can see that the arm looks wrong. But from just looking at the picture I don't see anything wrong. I mean when I know what I'm looking for yeah, but it seems fine to me.

And Cure, I know what you mean by the whole excuse thing, and to be honest, that's part of it. One, I don't see it being such a big problem, and two, I spent so much time on what I have right now that the thought of re-drawing that just doesn't seem like something I want to do right now. Maybe I'll get around to fixing it, maybe I wont. I'm just proud of how it turned out anyway.

Widen the torso A little bit more, otherwise his right arm looks a little too big. And when you hold a gun, you don't have a hunch in your shoulder but your elbow gets raised a little. Anyway, that's one of the coolest animations I have ever seen.