Punch :: Pixel Art Detail

Maybe he should run back instead of jumping, also after the jump and the punch should be longer.

I kinda like it. But it looks more like a slap to me than a punch.

That was indeed the plan. =D

Anyway, working on the running animation now. If I get around to it, I'll redo the gif animation, and try to make it a little less shitty.

Whats nice with that too is, you could pretty much re-use the hero animation for all attacks of the guy, and just change the enemy animation

It may just work. What I'm getting the most from this is that I need a few frames of running first :p

mmh, then perhaps you could try making it this way:
The animation over the character is, he readies himself, starts running forward for perhaps 3 or 4 frames, jumps--
and then the rest of the animation is on the enemy sprite, in which the character "flies" towards him at the enemy's height in the screen, lands and do his attack.
Unless it is even more restricted than I thought?

animation at hero --  Ready, step back, Starts running forward for two steps or so, jumps
animation at enemy -- hero flies towards the enemy in a straight horizontal line starting from the enemys' height (Which will look a little strange but not that much), lands, punch, and leaps back

Some of this is the side effect of smushing the animation into a smaller space than originally intended (RPG Maker deals with animations with its own system, and disallows use of already animated images). This image will NOT be updated, but I may take into consideration some of your suggestions (like adding more frames for running).

I won't add more punches to the animation, due to the fact that it's a standard attack. I'm saving more complex animations for special moves and the like. Making the character run and use his momentum to attack is another impossibility, due to the way the system I'm using handles itself. (The animation needs to be split up into two sections, one that plays over the character graphic, and one that plays over the enemy. It is impossible, with my scripts, to make the character run directly to an enemy, and there needs to be a fade between the moving forward and attacking animation to prevent his image from looking as if it suddenly jerked from one place to another on the screen. It looks less strange in mid jump than it does when running).

In any case, thanks for the suggestions. I'm sure you'll understand why I'm only taking some suggestions into account. The primary goal is to get it looking nice in game. The gif animation is a bit of a quickie job just to get something else in my gallery. I figured I couldn't let the pixel art just waste away where nobody would see it.

The animation seems very jerky because of sudden movements and how his momentum all stops at the punch. Maybe make him almost spin after the punch, as if the fist went through his poor victims' face like butter. Then he rotates back to standing, short pause. then jumps back to initial pose. You could also make him do more than one punch, a short left-left-right combo maybe?
Also, make him do a few steps before he JUMPS INTO ACTION, or it looks like hes more FLYING than jumping.

Finally, there is an awkward pause before the punch. if he does only one punch, he should use his running and do more of a CLOTHESLINE kind of attack instead.