Edit: Just wanted to say a big thank you for all the help. Have effectively started over for realizing I'd missed too many fundamentals here and studying chunks of Loomis. Battling away ingrained muscle baby syndrome and learning to draw somewhat more adult looking faces. Will return. :)
Some recent updates, new to old:
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/Scribblette/yarblewalks-2.gif)
Animated meat bags there for contrast with new stick poses.
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/Scribblette/moreyarble2.gif)
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/Scribblette/YarbleSplit.gif)
Cutting down on colours, incorporating facial features, necks and slimmer shoulders. Advice welcome on animation framework, trying to work from basics.
Will be seeing how gear looks at this scale before restructuring older side views & animations.
Regarding animation, intention was a 4 frames walk cycle, with frame 1 & 3 probably identical idle positions (such as in RPG Maker games) and smoother mid-frames & idle poses for later progress, but advice hard to get unless it has more to start with. Perspective of the world is that traditional, wonderfully skewed 3/4 view where sprites manage to look you flat in the eye while miraculously shuffling along at a 45 degree angle to the ground.