Animal emoticons

[Cirion Spellbinder]

I'm thinking about working on making new animal smilies for the forum. Each one would be a different (farm?) animal and lightly animated, maybe to blink or snort or something else cute. I've made one prototype and would like some feedback because I'm new to pixel art and animation (even bad animation)! Tips on how to make them more expressive especially appreciated. I'm going to upload a scaled up version and smaller version.

big pig

small pig

[brimstoneSalad]

That looks cool, your pixel art skills are pretty good!
I'm not sure if people would use them or not.

I think the wink, grin, smile, laugh, eyeroll, and devil get the most use.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

I think the wink, grin, smile, laugh, eyeroll, and devil get the most use.

What do you think about redoing them as bunnies or something? Like this:

[brimstoneSalad]

That could be fun, but I think the ears might pose a problem with size.
To be recognizable as a bunny they need to be longer and originate closer to the center of the head. Reference some cartoon bunnies for an example.
I think it would be hard to pull off at that size (maybe not impossible).

[brimstoneSalad]

I edited your pig.
Something like this may work. It doesn't give you a lot of space to work with, though.

bunnysmall20px.png

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Are there any emoticons that people would like? Maybe it would be better to add new ones instead of replacing the old ones.

[brimstoneSalad]

Are there any emoticons that people would like? Maybe it would be better to add new ones instead of replacing the old ones.

I'm not sure what people would use.

Can you take a shot at making expressions with that edited bunny?

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Can you take a shot at making expressions with that edited bunny?

Yes

[Cirion Spellbinder]

@brimstoneSalad I'm not a big fan of the results


I also made this:

[brimstoneSalad]

@Cirion Spellbinder

I like the salt, people might use that one.

Not bad for a start. I don't think the eyebrows really work, but the mouth changes are good.
You should probably look to change the shape of the eyes a bit more in the expressions, which would help. and just darken the top edges when needed.
For the tears, a more visible large single tear would probably be more effective. Referencing anime expressions might help. You can also change the ears on some of them to droop them.

Also, I didn't mean for it to be pink, that was just the color of the pig (the only small one). I think you probably had the right idea with green (although probably a darker green would work better).