Weh.

[SuperWarioWorld]

Your animation feels a little sluggish because all of Wario's limbs move the same amount in each frame. Your animation will feel a lot more energetic, however, if you add more frames when Wario's limbs are at their apex and lessen the frames at the midpoint. This technique is called Slow in and Slow out and it is one of the 12 basic principles of animation. A crude way of demonstrating this would be to remove frames 3 and 7 while keeping the framerate the same:



Sorry for the color corruption. The interlacing on your .GIF is super-weird. What program are you using?

Wow. That looks way better. I'm using Previous' GIF animator.
I guess I should say that I'm actually using this for a project. I could possibly use my original animation and cut frames 3 and 7 when Wario is moving quickly. I probably should just cut frames 3 and 7 entirely, though, considering Wario doesn't usually have a sprint in Wario Land.

[Gors]

your spriting techniques (color and still frames) are quite good but the animation definitely isn't your strong point

for this ramming animation, it would be more lively and strong if wario's y-position changed more when running.

---

I forgot,

you can have normal arms for other Wario poses that don't emphasize them. For example you may want to tone down on the arm detail on animations like walking (the amount of detail can be distracting during gameplay) and have them fully detailed on animations like ramming and attacking.

Many games (fighting games such as Street Fighter Alpha/3, Darkstalkers) do this and in addition of easening sprite production and increasing range on otherwise rangeless attacks, it gives out a nice visual effect akin to the pull/stretch of old cartoons

[SuperWarioWorld]

your spriting techniques (color and still frames) are quite good but the animation definitely isn't your strong point

for this ramming animation, it would be more lively and strong if wario's y-position changed more when running.

---

I forgot,

you can have normal arms for other Wario poses that don't emphasize them. For example you may want to tone down on the arm detail on animations like walking (the amount of detail can be distracting during gameplay) and have them fully detailed on animations like ramming and attacking.

Many games (fighting games such as Street Fighter Alpha/3, Darkstalkers) do this and in addition of easening sprite production and increasing range on otherwise rangeless attacks, it gives out a nice visual effect akin to the pull/stretch of old cartoons

I'll add some head/hat movement later.

As for the Dash Attack animation, is this better?

If he goes any higher, it'll look like he's bounding forward rather than sprinting.

I don't understand how his arm detail can be distracting during gameplay with bright colors surrounding him from all sides. I'll probably play around with that, though.

[Filler]

In my opinion, there's too much of the darker shade from Wario's forearms that it makes it hard to tell the contrast from the colours of his shirt compared to his skin. I suggest you tone it down in a similar way like this.



This also removes the distraction of the muscles, which is a bit harsh. But still keeps them.

EDIT: I also suggest you to improve the contrast of movement on each frame via overlapping action, as the timing and movement is a bit too stiff, which results in it looking awkward and disjointed.

[SuperWarioWorld]

That really just looks like wrinkles in his shirt.
Not sure what you're talking about at the end there. Running animation or Dash Attack animation?
If it's the running animation, I bet a portion of it looking awkward is the lack of head movement, which I'll add in a bit here.

[Filler]

@SuperWarioWorld

I don't really see a problem with the muscles themselves. Another idea I had is to change the colours of the darker shades of Wario's cloths to prevent it from making it harder too see compared to the skin. I just shrank the muscles as a quick-fix.

As for the animation, there's not enough weight and contrast in each frame. Some frames need more movement than others, as a simple breakdown.

[SuperWarioWorld]

I've nothing else to say at the moment except that I simply disagree with you. I feel like his shirt is very easy to see against his skin and that the animation looks fine as-is.
I slowed the run animation down. Maybe it was animated too quickly. I don't know.

[DragonDePlatino]

I'm a bit confused on who's saying what here, but I do think the muscles are little too exaggerated even in Fillerthefreak's edit. This department isn't really my forte, though, so I can only suggest you look at Wario's sprite from Wario Land: Shake It!

See how there aren't any lines on his arms, and it's mostly the outlines of his arms and their Popeye-like shape that gives them their definition? No need to draw everything out...just leave it up to the power of suggestion. Here's a possible edit to push your sprite in that direction:

[Kitsu]

I think the lines denoting muscles on his shoulders end up reading more like rigid details on pauldrons (like the big ones Samus has) rather than muscles.
Note that in most art of Wario, including your own avatar, the shoulder is generally left undetailed so as to draw more attention to his arm muscles instead.

The running animation's frames are nicely done, but it still feels really generic and uninspired. It seems like it's really lacking in character, being little more than a standard run cycle any other muscly guy might make, rather than the sort of unique run cycle a repugnant, greedy, fat guy would do. I'm sorry all I've got at the moment is highly subjective terms with lots of room for interpretation, but it's what I've got for now.

That said, I love the overall idea of the project and most of the design (would personally prefer slightly more belly fat) and am excited to see how this develops in the future.

[SuperWarioWorld]

I'm actually trying to downplay Wario's fat-guy character that came up in recent years and revert to his original appearances in the Wario Land series. There, he was fat, but not as comically fat as he is now, and his most recognizable trait was his strength and not his weight(Wario Land was even going to be called Super Strength Wario at one point).
I guess I could make Wario's run cycle resemble that of Wario Land 2 and 3. I feel like that had some degree of personality to it.
Also, in my avatar, Wario's arm has a single line of muscle detail... not exactly a great reference, if you're asking me.
As for DragonDePlatino...
I feel like removing the muscle detail on his shirt makes the forearm stick out like a sore thumb. I also feel like leaving the actual definition of the muscles up to interpretation is more of a stylistic choice than anything else.
The example you pointed to, Wario Land: Shake It!, omits a lot of detail and shading in most places, which isn't what I'm going for. It has a very simplistic, yet colorful look to it, with a hint of detail; I'm not necessarily looking for simplistic.
I'm probably just blabbering on about nothing right now.

[Filler]

Sorry to add more to this, but I think some reference could help a-lot.

Here's a sprite sheet of Wario dashing from Wario Land 4 (One of my favorite Wario games art design-wise)



Here's yours.



Notice how Wario tends to move different each frame? His facial expressions tend to show some personality to Wario, along with the fact his pose for tackling is different than yours. Yours seems to have his tackling elbow arm stick out too much. They look more like he's sticking his arm out, rather than what looks like him holding towards his stomach.

Wario's arm also has different contrast with each animation frame. Yours has Wario''s elbow just shake around as if it's placed on a new layer, while WL4 has his arm bending around with what looks like recoil.

IMO: Most of your animations move good, but more parts need to be animated. As I really like the walk cycle Wario has while performing a tackle.

I also feel like you're just editing the sprite with each new frame, rather than re-drawing it, which what tends to make sprites look stiff. Well, from my experience.

[SuperWarioWorld]

You'd be fully correct about me editing the sprite on the Dash Attack animation, but not the running animation.
I'm not sure what you mean by different contrast, but I definitely see the issue with Wario's arm just moving around in my version, as if disjointed.
I'll probably keep Wario's stance in my version, but I'll definitely overhaul the animation part of it and attempt to capture some of the personality of the Wario Land 4 version. I feel like his stance in mine looks more like a powerful, exaggerated tackle; not so much in Wario Land 4.
An important thing to note about that animation in Wario Land 4 is that Wario appears to be dashing halfway toward the viewer, as opposed to the angle of my sprite, which is meant to be Wario dashing straight forward.
In the meantime, I attempted to make Mario in the same style. No particular reason.


For now, he's just a head.
YOU GOT SOMETHING TO DRINKIE?

[SuperWarioWorld]

How's this looking so far? I'm thinking I have to tone down the movement on his right(our left) forearm, in addition to making its shoulder actually visibly move..
I can safely say that, personally, I still prefer the original.
I couldn't really give him any facial movement. It didn't turn out well.
I think it's worth pointing out, by the way, that the original 3 Wario Land games had none of that kind of movement.

[Filler]

The biggest problem is that there is too much movement now. Wario looks like he's melting. The contrast here is distracting and confusing.

Maybe rotate his lower tackling arm (below his elbow) to bob up and down in a mild circle motion? As upper part of his tackling arm was okay with mild shakes, so was the back arm completely.

Wario's head did not also need to move upwards. The original design of him lowering his head and bobbing was perfect, it just needed a bit more contrast (the difference of movement in each frame) to look less stiff.

If you want, I can make a quick mock-up of what I mean.

[SuperWarioWorld]

Please do, I don't think I understand how to do this well.
For no particular reason, I'd like to point out that, previously, Wario's head didn't necessarily rotate, his hat was the only part of his head that moved.
I'm wondering how this looks when he's actually moving. It definitely seems like something that would look better with motion.
The only glaring issue I see is his right(our left) arm's sporadic movement. Other than that, it seems like it would look fine with motion.