Teemo from League of Legends!

[nelon]

Hello all. I joined up to learn a bit more about spriting and to get some much needed feedback on my Teemo sprite.
Here it is:
I just used the basic Photoshop "swatches" so of course the colours could use a lot of work. I honestly don't know where to begin with picking colours... Is it really okay to just adjust luminosity? Is this considered pillow-shading? Overall, it looks "acceptable" to me but of course there is a reason I am posting it here.
I think I screwed myself over by starting with something so (relatively) big... and perhaps screwed myself even more by starting to animate it:
with a mushroom
and
hopping
The "idle" one with the mushroom is simple enough; I just moved the body a few pixels down and "delayed" the feather. I don't know what else to change while keeping it simple. Any ideas?
Trying to animate him actually moving (walking, hopping) has turned out to be a real challenge. I don't know if this is the proper way of doing it but right now I'm just focusing on making the arms and legs look right and for this reason it's all centred and stuff. Do they?

Thanks for looking. Comments please!