I'd hold back on the animating, because it looks like you need to get more of a grip on the basics. Bengo has pointed out a good deal of issues, but I have a few to add.
For one, don't work on a white background, it messes with your eyes' perception of the colours and their contrast. I personally use a black background, but that's probably not a good alternative, as it plays similar tricks with contrast and I often have to correct my palette a number of times when the piece is 'done'. Work with a neutral colour background, like a mid-value grey or a desaturated green. If you see videos of Helm working, he often changes the background colour as he works on a piece to constantly re-gauge how his colours are interacting.
Many things wrong with the stance. It looks like he's sort of tipping backwards, or is it just me? His feet are together and legs are straight, not good for swinging a sword because you have minimal balance. Feet should be spread apart, and knees bent, lowering his centre of gravity. That's how he should look when he's going to do a swiping animation.
You've made many classic pixel-newbie 'boo-boos'. As we all have. You are using gradients in place of shading. Check out some tutorials on shading (there's a
tutorials thread on this forum).
I'm a bit of an anti-outline individual. Unless they are used masterfully in the right circumstances. The outlines in your piece are bad for a couple of reasons, 1; on such a small sprite they are using up valuable pixels, 2; they are making things look flat (not that the gradients are really helping to show volume, but anyway). At the least, don't have outlines inside your sprite, for instance where the hair runs across the forehead. Those are outlines inside, or 'inlines'. Inlines = evil (others feel free to argue that point). Better yet, just kill the outlines altogether (for instance, look at Bengo's).
And the face, the face is very plain and without personality. Give it something more.