Drag's guide to generic 2D platformer sprite poses

If you're a programmer not entirely unlike me, you've tried making a game without 'borrowing' sprites from other games, right? Well, I ran into a problem in the process, because I didn't know how to pose my character! I had to look at other games to figure out how to pose my humanoid character.

To demonstrate, I'll use a special sprite I call DemoMan!

See? each of his limbs are a different color. I don't know if that helps or anything, but it sure looks nice and demo-ish!

The absolute basic poses that you'll need are as follows:

• Standing
• Walking
• Jumping

Some optional poses may include:

• Climbing
• Falling
• Crouching
• Getting Hurt
• Dying

First thing's first, let's start with the basic poses.

----Standing----

A standing sprite is very simple. I actually probably don't need to go over it, but I will anyway.

Uh huh, yeah. If you want, you can add some blinking, some yawning, whatever. This is just an absolute sideview of this guy, some people may prefer a view turned a little bit towards the camera so you see the character's front.

----Walking----

Walking can be a little difficult at times, depending on the character you have to animate. There also are many different approaches to walking, including:
The 4 frame approach:

The 6 frame approach:

The 8 frame approach:

and etc etc.

I didn't add any variation for the two sides (both his arms and legs go into the exact same spots in respect to each other). You can vary it if you want, but this is just a simple guideline.

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