Pixel art for jam games: a 4-frame walk cycle in 16×16

If you've never animated a character before, a 16×16 walk cycle is the best place to start. It's small enough to finish in half an hour and it'll still read clearly when scaled up 4× or 8×.

The four frames

1. Contact. Legs apart, both feet touching the ground.
2. Passing. Legs together under the body.
3. Contact again. Legs apart the other way. Even a 1px shift makes it read as the opposite step.
4. Passing. Reuse frame 2. Nobody will notice, and it's one less frame to draw.

Tips that save time

• Pick your palette first and stick to 4–8 colours. Above that it's just noise at this size.
• Draw the outline in a very dark blue or purple instead of pure black. It looks softer.
• Only move what has to move. Here the head and body are identical in every frame.
• Play it at 8–10 fps. Fewer frames played faster reads better than lots of frames played slowly.
• Export at 1× and scale with nearest-neighbour in the engine (image-rendering: pixelated on a canvas), never in the image editor.

Post your own cycles below! Bonus points if you add an idle bob (move the body 1px down every other frame).