The VG Resource

as the title suggest this topic is aimed around animation, I've recently wanted to try out hand drawn animation but my graphics tablet died, but I figured I could practice base principles via pixel art.

I'd like to stress, I do not aim to shade these sprites, I aim only to get good animation quality. Colours picked and line art problems are ofc still relevant.

Here is the sprite I'd like to start with, aiming for heavy recoil animation like a cartoon, to exadurate obvious features.
OLD
CURRENT
EDIT: a slight revision

I've made a little progress but I see a few problems, namely the shoulder of jelly, I'll fix it up soon, any more comments or criticisms would be greatly appreciated so I can work on other issues too,
thanks again for the help

any and all comments, constructive criticisms, advise, relevant links and or references are greatly appreciated,
Thanks in advanced,
Bombshell

The more I stare at it, the less sense it makes.

His body movement is all wobbly, as if he was a balloon filled with water. The one foot just shrinks in one frame and the other moves back while the front of that leg stays, that looks just weird. The lower hand shouls stay on the handle; the way it hovers above it when the hammer's head moves up is off, it should rather push the handle down to counter the head's weight. Furthermore, the hammer's head should rotate or else you have the impression of it not being attached properly.
When doing motion blurs, avoid outlining them or they won't work properly - it looks like deformation rather than motion.

not to say the movement is too subtle to need a motion blur.

EDIT: a slight revision

I've made a little progress but I see a few problems, namely the shoulder of jelly, I'll fix it up soon, any more comments or criticisms would be greatly appreciated so I can work on other issues too,
thanks again for the help

just because you add more frames on it it doesnt mean you'll get a smoother animation.

animation, just like color choices, is and should be a product of optimization as well. there is no reason why your character should raise his foot, and not enough force to actually bend that hammer's handle by the motion described here. given the character's current animation he barely makes any effort at all to raise it.

i can see you're trying to exagerate things a bit, but i strongly advice you that for such thing to actually look good, you'll have to completely redraw every frame. every thing in that animation should be afected from the force of lifting that weight -wich includes facial animations, body gesture(raising a foot, no), etc.