Hello all, long time viewer here. I'm making a little game that has a pink boxy character. Basically the image below is how I want him to look--like a pink pigish thing in a squarish shape. I'm sure it looks very amateurish to the naked eye, so I'm hoping you folks can give me some feedback and improvement tips to make him look super amazing!

I wonder...

I corrected the shading a bit and added an arm. What do you think? Something else is missing I just can't put my finger on it...

And some firing

OK, made a few changes to it, enbiggened the eyes, and fixed up the ears and tail a bit so that it is consistent with the rest of the figure. I'm having a bit of a time with the slanted edge. Any tips or help with that?

I think the rigid wheels work with the smooth motion but at a slower rate. But I'm still having trouble with the slanty back.

So I've made a few more improvements. Made him small and rounded out his front a bit. Also dropped his wheels and tail.

Actually, I think it really works with my game background:

Thanks Eishiya, I think you're right. So I've added a bit of rough animation. I still need to work out the shading faux-pas's but I'm getting closer and closer.

OK, so I cleared up the jaggedness of the feet and I still need to animate the arm and clean up a few other things.

Yes, it does look a bit worse, but now I have something to work with.



Here's each frame:

But I think I got the arm thing down

You have to keep in mind that the whole body moves while someone or something walks; even if you try to keep your entire body stiff as a board while you walk, your hips will still move (up and down, back and forth) because of your legs.

I’m getting into a bit more of the philosophical here, but pixel art is something an art of implication. Unlike 3D modelling, pixel art doesn’t typically rely on showing you all the details and aiming for super-realistic rendering. Think about sprites for NES games: with limited size and color options, games from that era did their best to imply details/shapes and animate sprites in ways that implied more detailed movements. Mega Man couldn't be animated to show every little tiny movement that comes with running and jumping and landing and firing the Mega Buster, so the games implied these ideas with a combination of animation and programmed “physics”. Every time he jumped, you didn’t need to picture him bending at the legs before leaping into the air, and every time he landed, you didn’t need to picture him bracing his body to absorb the impact of the landing. The details weren’t there, but they were implied through sprite shapes and how the game handled his movements.

You don’t need to do an entire Metal Slug-style sprite animation to make your animation look good. You need to remember that you’re trying to imply human(-esque) movement, not recreate it in exquisite detail. Study some walk/run cycles and figure out how to best imply that movement with your sprite.

I don't think the box character has knees in the first place

It animates fast so I could be wrong... but it looks like your up.down is backwards.  the character should be at the tallest on the pass through and the shortest at the step

His right leg appears to break the illusion of anatomy within the sprite. Look how far it goes forward and compare that distance to how far it goes backwards. Without the pig’s body turning or moving in a way that justifies the positioning of that leg, the animation breaks the illusion of anatomy and comes off as “odd” (at the very least). The left leg suffers a similar illusion-breaking problem, even though the animation moves fast enough to sort of hide that problem.

That’s not to say that you absolutely need the body to move during a run cycle animation:



That piece has limited movement of the torso and head (they only really bounce according to the movement of the whole body). So why does it work so well as an animation?

Notice how the character doesn't really have shoulders during the animation; the arms swing back and forth while the spot where the shoulder would be appears to swing with it. But that’s the key to why this works: the movement of the whole arm stays within acceptable limits of “illusory movement”. In other words, the arm moves in a way that makes what would be the shoulder/chest area appear to twist back and forth—an illusion of perception—while still appearing “human” enough that it doesn’t feel weird to look at. (The legs pull off a similar trick, albeit with hips instead of shoulders.)

Your character doesn't need to have a humanoid form, but it needs to have some sense of anatomy to it. If you're going to have your sprite run the way a person would, you have to figure out that anatomy and work within its boundaries.

That is awesome TYB3N!!!!!!

It really helped me come up with this:



I think this whole thread is a win!!

You never addressed the shading xP

Should have a transparent background.
I love the dithering on the strap btw