How’s this animation? I’m very new to sprites and sprite animating in general, so I would appreciate any feedback at all about how I can make this animation look better, or perhaps suggestions on completely different running animations altogether.
EDIT: I know that it may be hard to see, so to describe it, the mage is lifting his staff as he moves, along with moving his front foot forward, causing the bottom half of the robe to move forward as well.
IMO - the cycle looks like a gliding type enemy. One that hovers slightly off the ground and has no friction with the surface he is moving over.
He is also moving quite fast, though this might be the look you are going for.
If you want to make him look like he is walking, contacting the ground, his entire body should move up and down during the cycle, and he can have some overlapping motion, meaning the torso lags behind the up and down movement, one frame slower than the legs, and the extremities could also lag behind the torso one frame.
Best to look at good reference material - any simple sprite walk cycle will do, but keep in mind since this is a mage type character he isn’t as burly as an ogre or barbarian, so he will have less up/down motion, but still a little (one pixel) so he looks like his body is reacting to the friction/impact the feet are having with the ground.
Unless your going for a gliding type character that has no friction, like a gliding ghost character. If so - I believe you have achieved that look very well.
Thanks for the feedback! I actually hadn’t really been going for a specific walking style; just kind of hoped I’d come upon something that worked. Now that you mention it, though, hovering does sound like a good route to go for a mage character. So with a few minor tweaks, I think I can pull off the gliding effect. Also, since I plan to add some more characters, such as a knight, the information you gave me about ground contact while walking is very useful! I’ll be sure to check out some reference material for those types of characters!