Hey tunafish, great work. I love the shaky painful straining wobble he does as he walks because it's so expressive, but I agree with souly, it's so novel you'll tire of it quickly and it becomes excessive. I think souly "fixed" it. Maybe you can just slow him down some.

Overall, the old animation just looks like he's being cautious, and the new one acheives your goal of him being under strain/weight.

Make the "smoke trails" transparently blend into eachother like the valvoline or ebay logo, which introduce a new spot color where shapes overlap. If anything, do something to make them less solid and more wispy and light.

At least you have your priorities in check, which is more than I could've said at your age.

A thought on the bg environment, since you expanded it, give it mood - deck it out in organic alienish monster surfaces/objects, think of what the aliens from the sci-fi "Alien" would do to a ship's interior when taken over and converted into nesting grounds - there was people cocooned up in nasty alien growth stuff, organic pipes, tubes, random living tumorous material everywhere. Think Giger. Jabba here would probably feel more at home, too.