I think part of the problem is that the colours are rather harsh.
The helix form of the HP bar is a neat idea, but doesn't read well at 1x because the dark red blends with the black, because of how bright the lighter red is. I think with different colours this could be very effective. Perhaps a less-bright red, with a slightly darker and purplish colour for the back part of the helix?

Edit: Here's a version with the colours on all three bars modified (made less intense), and a little highlight added on the two smaller bars for some extra interest:

I don't know how important each bar is, or how this part of the HUD looks in context of the rest of the game, so I don't know how well it would work, but I hope it gives you some ideas!

That does look quite nice but the colors feel a bit washed out compared to the rest of the game, where I try to keep the colors as poppy as possible without being eye burning. It might just work that way though, maybe it'll create a better contrast with the game and make it easier to see the HUD. Here is a semi-old screenshot with your edit on top, to get a feel



Not bad

By the way, that hp bar wasn't even meant to be a helix, and I didn't see it that way until you said it 

i think you pretty much nailed it with that last edit. The legs seem a bit small compared to the rest of the body though. Maybe shifting the torso one pixel to the right compared to the legs might help, not sure though

It does look a bit better now that I look at it from a fresh eye. However, the leg does seem to get smaller when it goes behind

I am trying to translate this animation



to a side view, and this is what I have so far



After like 4 hours of fiddling with this, it finally looks like these legs are trying to get somewhere BUT

After comparing the two, it looks to be more like a jogging animation than a fast walk as in the first one but I have had a lot of difficulty making it readable when the motion was slower. I didn't even intend to turn it into a jogging animation, it just kind of turned out this way naturally as I was trying to make it more readable.

Don't mind the odd colors, only focus on the animation please

Thanks

A few new changes



I reworked that tree trunk a little bit now and I think the shape is looking much better. I added a new rock which has given me a lot of trouble again, as rocks always do. I tried my heads at making a little dude to see how that would work and no matter how long I played around with his shirt, I just cannot wrap my head around shading cloths. It's like it never looks good?

Finally, I added a new little grass pattern to make things look a bit less boring, but I think I need a less saturated green for it to work? 

Also, I now realize that it seems like I just took all the assets I had made and just spread them around, except maybe for the little arrangement above the character? I didn't want to have too much composition going on however because I felt like it would have been harder to c+c the individual assets if they were all layed out on top of each other everywhere. I will probably make a more composed version of this later to see how they would work in a real situation (video game, etc.) 

Having a fixed palette ready for Ludum Dare might work. Should save you time.

That would probably help, but I've used premade palettes before (dawnbringers' and arne's for example) and they seem to just slow me down because I don't know how to make these colors work together properly, and I haven't studied them enough

I decided to do some daily pixel art for the next 2 weeks to hone my skills before Ludum Dare and I would like feedbacks on this piece I worked on today



After playing around for a bit, I found a style that is manageable for me and fast to produce assets with, which is very essential in a 48 hours game jam like Ludum Dare.

The rocks are what gave me the most trouble. One of the two variants doesn't look too bad I think but the other isn't very polished and should be reworked. I might as well drop it tho since it's so similar in shape to the better one

The path is the newest addition and is where I am stuck currently. I just have no clue how to texture it and make it look like a muddy/earthy passage in a forest 

To be honest, it kind of feels like the whole thing is lifeless? Not sure if that's the right word to describe it but it's like something is missing ...