I don't like how his head turns in the ice effect. It seems like he is unable to control it.  Much better was the fire effect animation's head. In miming the action at my keyboard I notice perhaps it is natural to look in the direction of your hand at the end, but the movement of the head on the neck is so quick, it doesn't need any frames in between.

I think often experience helps people to get a more realistic image of themselves.

For me, for instance, when I was 13-17 I felt like I was a great artist and would even call myself an 'artist.' But with age comes experience, and as you get better you learn that there is even farther to go. Though you become better than you've ever been, your vision of yourself might be the worst its ever been, but realistic for once.

Around here Helm is like a God and it is natural to want to (unconsciously) attribute some fortuitous events to him. Like saying "Praise be to Jesus"
Thankyou Helm, my Lord and Savior. Amen.
 

About the run cycle: while I'm generally not in favor of head-turns and those are often used to fix the 'static-head disease,' I think some things could be done with it. In the few frames of the reference it seems at some stages of the run cycle his head has a tendency to incline toward the ground. Whether that's just because he's looking at something, idk, but in any case some head bobbing/ angle changing might help the run cycle.
If it's too difficult or makes it look worse, don't worry about it.

Also, there's some banding on his arm.

Currently the size you've been working with makes it difficult for you to pay as much attention to the pixel level as might be necessary. It would take a lot of work.
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299 is a tutorial by Cure that can help explain pixel level detail.