So, this is my second post on this website. I'm pretty new to spriting/animation, and I'd love any advice on things that I seem particularly weak on, or anything I'm doing right that I should keep doing.

More specifically though, these are all sprites for a game (which I probably won't finish, and am really using as a way of learning things) that is supposed to have a similar perspective to Zelda.
This was pretty much just pixel for pixel copied based off a Minish Cap idle frame, and is really just here to give a frame of reference.
This next one was done from scratch, but is obviously very derivative.




The main things I had questions about were: are these sprites too derivative of the sprites I used for reference?
The walking animation feels fairly stiff, and I was wondering how to make it a little less stiff.
Are the different characters different enough that they don't just feel like recolors? (I'm trying to leave the outfits as a pretty blank template for now)
And I think the profile looks horrible, and I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.
Also, I think the lighting probably needs more work, so if anyone wants to comment on that feel free, but I'll definitely try and work on some lighting tutorials as soon as I have the time.

Any and all help/criticism/etc would be sincerely appreciated, and thanks in advance!