That totally makes sense. When I did my Roku running animation I did like 30 or 40 variations before I got to my final. It would be obnoxious if I had uploaded all of those. I just figured I'm animating him two different ways. To be honest, I could probably delete the original since it's the most redundant now. These two I feel are pretty different though. I just finished a third, but I'm not going to add him. I think I'm good with playing around with him as a character for a bit. ;)

But yeah, people who just palette swap and act like it's a new image are weird... 

The main reason I uploaded this is because it's what I've been working on and I'm spending so much time on these animations that my gallery is looking kinda flimsy. Even though I'm working! Haha. I appreciate the feedback though. I'd hate to be seen as "one of those." ;)

Well, it depends on why you're uploading it to the gallery. Some people try to upload 20 different versions of their same 8x8 pixel image of a sword. "Here's one with a red hilt... here's one with a blue hilt..." What's the point in doing that? Surely, the whole point of uploading anything to the gallery is to share new art with other people, so they can enjoy something new and you can see how they respond. Especially if you've come to the point where you're not really planning to make any further changes. But people upload for different reasons, I guess, so my thoughts are of little consequence.

Thanks for the feedback, CELS! At the moment I'm planning to stick with this design, but I might consider a redesign later to deal with the issues you brought up - I can see the lack of readability you're talking about, now that you mention it. I also appreciate the direction in how to fix it. I'll see what I can come up with.

And yeah, I definitely won't be doing more of him here. I figured 3 was enough, but I've seen people with like 6 or 7 of the same character so it's hard to know where to draw the line. Maybe next time I'll do the character and just update the original image later with added expressions? That also seems weird. Thoughts?

Nice animation!  I took the liberty of doing a quick edit for the basic sprite for the head

Now, I don't know how you drew this, but it kind of seems to me like you made the outline first, with all the details, and then worked out the shading later. Because the shading doesn't convey the shape of the head very well, in my opinion. And it's kind of hard to distinguish between shadows and what I presume to be some Darth Maul-esque facial paint / tattoos.  If I were you, I would first look at the general shape of the head, particularly the distance between his eyes and the top of his head. Then get rid of all the details and try to improve the shading, so it's easier to read the shape of the skull. Then, when you're happy with how things look, add final details like tattoos in a way that doesn't conflict with general readability.

  Also, since this is your third gallery submission with this particular head, perhaps it would be better to have a single piece that loops through all the various expressions? Instead of submitting a new version every time you add a new animation?