Well, he does have a back dash xD But nothing would be as smooth as an actual Castlevania moonwalk ^^

That's a keen eye you got there... or maybe it's just more obvious than I thought xD This is actually based on Soma's run animation from Dawn of Sorrow, which is similar to Alucard's that you mentioned. Still, no tracing, just tried to recreate the same feeling of movement, as I always liked how movement felt in portable Castlevania games, even though they lack some weight.

Thanks! The running might need to be sped up, yes, depending on how it feels once it's in the game. In this image I just left every animation in the same frame speed.

Wow, thanks! ^^

Wow, thanks! :D

Yeah, only after commenting did I think that this might be for a JRPG actually, that makes sense xD and yes, unless party formations are affected or something similar, there's no need to actually show that a surprise attack came from the back, I guess...

Wow, awesome! Now I feel like playing Castlevania for some reason :D It's interesting that he actually turns to his back when dashing away, usually in games they simply mirror the other direction...

Oh, Amygdala! Hands and feet look pretty sweet!

Oh, I didn't think about that, yes I did the rays with opacity layers, for some reason I forgot to think whether or not I should submit it like that... sorry! ^^' Ok, I'll re-submit this once I've cleaned it up...

The light rings look great, really cool effect!

Thanks! Maybe there's too much going on though, now that I look back at it again ^^' at least the animation loop seems too... loopy?

I would say use some other dark color other than black for the shadow, just like you did for the cliff shadows, and also check your light sources, I feel like the sword's shadow direction doesn't match the one on the cliff. And maybe give more detail to the metallic surface of the sword's blade and round tip. The sword is the center piece, but the cliff has more detail than it does.

That's a pretty cool take on Sly Cooper, I always thought the games didn't do enough justice to such a cool character. The clouds also look like they belong to the game's style, which is cool. But I would do something about the eiffel tower in the background, for the ammount of attention it draws it doesn't have enough detail and looks a bit jaggy. Also, I would make the arm that's holding the weapon a bit easier to see and less mixed with the shadow.

Thanks! Yeah, the forehead wrinkle idea seems like it would be nice actually, the intention was to add some surprise that a big eye would come out of that small deformation in the forehead, but I can see how it could look weird. As for the outlines, I'll probably never do this again, I was experimenting with anti-aliasing and it ended up just being bad, I might try again later, just not in an animation...