Had some time an made an edit:


The first thing I did was to fix the anatomy and tried to create a more natural, believable stance.
 
It's hard to explain colors, but try to keep them meaningful.  You had 38 colors I think, and I got my edit down to 15.  I would suggest working with other palettes til you get the feel for how they work.  Another words, force yourself to use, say... 16 colors only and adjust those.  Your palette has good contrast overall, but some very similar colors which don't add anything.  I learned more about color from doing fixed palette collaborations and doing edits. 
 
Try to create definition by paying close attention to lighting.  And think in terms of pixel clusters and limit the use of single pixels. 

And don't be afraid pf pulling things apart and shifting things around and redrawing parts.  This goes back to my first sentence about fixing the anatomy.  I separated, stretched, redrew, twisted, etc. before I did any details, then I pulled it apart again, and again.

I hope my advice was helpful, I'm no expert.

Also, you had a weird 66% or something scaling on your image.  Generally it's preferred to post original size.

Hello dpixel! Sorry for the delay... I had no access to computer til now due to travelling.

Thank you so much for the tip! the color and pose you were using are so much more natural. I am trying to do a no outline approach so let me use your tip and fix my character haha.

Haro.

I've struggled with this (still am) when I first started doing pixel art so I think it will be helpful to share what I learned so far in pixel art.

First, an image of reference, THIS IS THE MOST HELPFUL IMAGE YOU WILL SEE IN THIS POST, all TL; DR can stop right here and download this image.


The style is a bit cartoonish in this pic but the motion is on point, for example, if you follow this, your final product will look something like this:

(credit to redditer Larlock1, I am too lazy to make one...)

So I loosely followed this (yeah...), and below are some examples for fast runs:



This is one of my oldest animations (did it when I first start), but you can see the same motion (it's bad I know hur):




The above are 10 frame animations, they are for faster runs. For a more relaxed run, you want to slow it down a bit by using more frames to make it smoother, example:



This is a bad example, I am trying to animate a slow, heavier run but used only 8 frames:


Mr. Ogre here, is doing a slightly better job on that, notice he's limping a little bit, as the leg on the left never crossed the middle position, if you want to do a normal one you should make his body turn and make the leg go forward a bit more:


For me, I am not really that kind of guy who focus on the accurate locations of the body parts (like the highest point of leg motion much be at this point on canvas) but rather a general feeling (Yeah it's bad don't learn from me), so... I am out of things to say.

Here's a nice picture:



Let me know if this is helpful or if you guys want to see a tutorial on attack animations or something.

Peace and love you all!

So the main character changes classes in order to fight?  I actually had a similar idea.

The idle animations:
--The Knight's cape is all over the place while his sword and shield stay parallel.  It's impossible for them not to waver in the slightest.  The shoulder pads also move very statically, when the should probably be a bit more freeform.
--The Mercenary should probably has some movement on his actual body.   The scarf kind of flickers and the tunic shimmers far too much.
--The highlights on the Samurai should line up a bit more, and the hat should have at least one more frame of change, otherwise it just jitters rather than billows.
--The cape on the Normal MC shouldn't have half of it be in a wind tunnel while the other half is barely moving. 

Motion animations:
--Run looks more like a jog.  May need to be sped up a bit.  Otherwise the cape is a bit jittery.
--Having the transform animation be him turning into a rough, naked blue figure and literally growing into the new body before growing the new clothes looks pretty weird IMO.  I would suggest maybe summoning the clothes directly on in a flash of light or something?
--Attack animations are a bit rough.  I like them, but they don't flow like an actual human moving.  The Merc's are definitely better than the Knight's.

Thanks for the replly Rosier!!

Yep the idea is you can transform to different vocations when you run into a combat area. In normal situations you simply interact and run as the main character.

Thanks to your tips I've now noticed them, it was pretty hard for me since I stared at them for so long haha.

For the main character, I purposefully gave him a 16 frame slow joggging animation because he shows up in non-combat area and can usually take his time and all. The other combat character has much faster run. Noted on the cape

Yeah I had a pretty rough time thinking about the transformation (surprisingly difficult), since this is a darker themed game I do not want to make it a sailor moon style transform... Can you elaborate it a bit on the flash of light? DId you mean there should be a flash and after the flash the character will just become the knight?

I am assuming you are pointing to the knight? hmmm ok I will make it more fluid!

You're welcome

If you want to keep consistency, then yes, don't use outlines. Good choice.
Just made a quick edit to show you how contrast can make things stand out. don't take it as a pre build palette, it's really just to encourage you pushing contrast.



I also pushed the hue variation a bit from a blueish dark green to a yellowish light green. And reduced the lighter area a bit. Keep up !

Got it, thank you so much for the tip!! Editing it now..

A "grunt" enemy for my game. Any tips on color/shading/outline/everything will be appreciated!



Thank you so much guys!