What on earth is he supposed to be? Some kinda humanoid eel thing . . . person . . . guy?
Just as you yourself acknowledge, your coloring is quite poor, but that's ok. You're starting out and you'll improve. Forget animation, forget game art and tiles, designing graphics within unnecessary confining specs, just sit down and churn out some random crazy stuff so you can practice coloring. You need to. You can use this project as a means of practice, but if you value it, and you move ahead with it, and then get better at coloring, you'll look back on the art for this project with regret, thinking, 'why didn't I just do some practice so all this could have more continuity?' You don't want that.
Your latest running animation is pretty cool, though. Biggest complaint is how his legs seem to hyperextend at their most extended positions. You're pixelling in too much movement too quickly; it appears to speed up when his feet are kicked out. Otherwise it's nice 'n smooth-like.