I think you could do with having him bob back and forth a little, or adjust his footing. Nothing huge, but something to keep the player interested when they aren't moving.

Maybe have another animation take over after waiting a while. Having him stand up straight and toss his knife up and down could add a little character, for example.

He looks like he’s deliberately curving his spine into an uncomfortable position. If you shunt the torso and his left arm back a pixel but keep everything else where it is, I think it should look a little more natural.

I've been wanting to create a 2D platformer (most similar to Classic Sonic), and I've finally gotten the main character to the point where I want to begin animating. Here are the two competing versions of the character - the first one I made a few weeks back, and the second one was an edit from today.

It's too early to say which one I like best (although I'm leaning towards the second one), so which do you prefer? Are there any improvements you think I could make? I'd like to hear anything, even if it is something vague about whether it looks right or not.

To be honest, it's difficult to provide criticism for such a small piece of work without anything to compare it against. It's like trying to critique an entire soup by the color of a single piece of veg, or a car by its exhaust pipe.

Posting this as a shameless bump:



Added a scarf in different colors than I'd originally planned, not sure if it looks right but it's certainly better than it looked scarf-less.