Hey RedSuinit.  Here is my edit and advice on how you should proceed.



As Yukie mentioned earlier your dude has gorilla-arms-disease (which seems to be a common problem).  I've drastically raised his elbows.  Anatomically, they usually fall right above the love handles or higher.  I also gave him longer shins, because they were so incredibly short. 

As far as posing, I raised his left arm, because with both hands down by his waist it seems more like he's doing a naughty dance, or getting read to roll some dice, neither of which makes me think he's ready for a fight.

As far as blandness, I gave him to stripes on his shoulder just to add something, a belt and buckle, because bad dudes wear belts and it helps break up the torso from the pelvis.  As well I slightly hinted at pockets on the jeans.  You'll notice also that I gave a ring for his neck.  Before it seemed king of  like he wore his shirt on backward so it was riding up his neck.  I also varied his jaw a bit so it's more manly and tough guy like.  Before it was too soft and pudgy. 

Last piece of advice, especially since you're new to pixel art (not sure if you're new to art in general):  on complicated pieces like this, you should really fine tune the anatomy of your character, style and costume, and especially the pose, before starting to animate.  It will cut down on development time when you have to make a correction and then go through every frame and correct it (this is only 5 frames so it's not as big a deal as it could be).  So in short, put up a still picture of your character, get critiqued on that, then once you're satisfied, move on to animating.

Okay, one last piece of advice:  if you think something looks wrong with your picture, flip it horizontally (meaning if he's looking to his left, flip it so he's look to his right).  Almost immediately, you'll notice what's wrong.  If you don't, then flip it vertically so he's standing on his head.  If you still don't notice what's wrong then post so you can get some C + C.

This time I mean it, last thing:  honestly, my edit can be pushed much, much further.  He still kind of looks like he's just standing there, maybe looking at his invisible phone.  Bring up both of the arms even further, so they're actually almost chin height and he'll look ready to punch someone's face off.

Here's a quick lesson on arcs in animation.  Everything moves in an arc.  If it doesn't move in an arc it's wrong (again, unless you know what you're doing).  The human body moves very much in arcs, and it's probably not more prevalent than in the arms.  This is a very, very, very crude representation of something in that book I told you about:



On the top-left is a pendulum (think grandfather clock swinging thingy).  When it moves the weight (circle part) moves at an arc, because where it pivots is stuck in one spot.  Right now your arm movements are doing what the bottom left drawing is which is the wrong thing to do.  When the weight moves it just goes straight across.  If you think about it for a minute you'll understand why this is wrong.



...Pencils down.  Let's see your answer!

If you said that it's because when the center pendulum is in the center position, the suspension (the long stick holding the weight) changes size, then you are correct!  Obviously, a static solid object cannot change it's size, thus the pendulum has to move in an arc.

The super excellent right hand drawing is supposed to be an arm (if you squint hard enough ), which oddly enough looks like a pendulum!  The top circle is the shoulder, or the pivot.  The second circle down is the elbow, or the weight of the pendulum.  Now look at your arm.  Go ahead, don't be shy!  Now move it every which way you can think of.  Does it ever, even once, change it's length from shoulder to elbow?  I will just assume you are a normal person and that your answer is no, it in fact does not change in size.  So from this little experiment, which of the two left hand drawings will more closely imitate the actual swinging of your arm?  Yes, you are correct.

To further illustrate the point, I've taken the liberty of drawing the forearm down to the hand in the pendulum/arm exercise.  You'll notice that the wrist is also moving in an arc, and the hands move in an arc.  Now think about why this is.  If you need a hint just read the above paragraph.

So, in answer to why your characters' arms look funny, it's because they are sliding along the same plane, rather than swinging from a pivot.  Does this help?

If you're wondering why I didn't address this in my own edit of your animation its because I forgot about it. 

Hi Yukie and welcome!

First off I want to say that this sprite is very cute.

Here's my edit:



Now some explaintions.

Your walk cycle has a good start, but I feel that while you were animating you kept forgetting which arm/leg was swinging which way (I do it all the time ), so I made sure the darker leg was always in the back.  This seems like a small thing but it can really mess everything up.

Second, its good to see you swinging the head from side to side, but at it's current speed it is far to jittery.  I slowed the whole animation down and kept the head looking in one position, which is not really necessary, but it will help you slow down and animate a little easier, should you choose to rotate the head.

I also gave the head just three positions so it doesn't jitter as much.

You can keep the animation as fast as you have it because it gives character to her, but the faster the animation the less movement you should be doing.  I realize that the way I animated her it looks more like she's strutting around, but it should give you an idea of the movements.

I also highly, highly, highly suggest getting this book if you don't have it alreay:  Richard Williams Animator's Survival Kit.

I hope that this helps and can't wait to see more of your stuff.

Hey Xaefo.  My first thought is that you need to understand the basics of drawing first and foremost.  Pixel art seems like it should be easy, but it actually takes a lot of knowledge of anatomy and how things work together in order to get something to read on such a small scale.  It took me awhile to realize that it was in fact a rhino head and not an alien with some antenna. 

In all art, and especially in arms and legs, you need variation.  If they're the same, then it will look static and boring.  Honestly, you could have done anything else to the arms and legs and it would look better.  Mirror images are rarely a good thing, unless you have a specific purpose behind it.

Also, I'd work on how to draw a head in 3/4 perspective.  Unless the entire body is in a profile position (fully side, like Mario), then the head needs to look three dimensional too.

When a character is one color (except for his undies) then you'll probably need to use some shading to break up the flatness of the coloring.

Here's a quick edit to show you what can be done in just a few quick minutes:



One last thing on posing.  First start off in all black.  Make a silhouette of what your character is doing.  If you can tell from the silhouette who a character is and what he is doing then you can start going into colors and details. Here's an example of silhouettes from the game Team Fortress 2.  All are very unique and instantly recognizable. 



I hope nothing I said was too harsh.