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At 7/27/11 08:45 PM, TehSlapHappy wrote: The body looks very stiff. Loosen him up a bit. Get some of those limbs bending.

What he said ^^

I made a quick walk cycle for ya (HERE!).
Look how the knee bends as he lifts his leg.

I'll try to be as nice as possible.
The picture is far from perfect, but it's a good start. First thing you should improve upon is anatomy. The proportions on the arm that's holding the briefcase are way off. And the head looks a bit too large for the face and the hair. Even if your going for a simplistic/cartoon style, you should know the basics of human anatomy or your drawings won't look good.

The other thing you should study is lights and shading. The shading on the head works okay because his head is shaped like a ball. But the way the light hits your briefcase doesn't work because the shape resembles a box more than anything (check my drawing to see what I mean). The same applies to his hair.

It never hurts to google some reference photos either. His shirt/coat looks like something a doctor would wear rather than a businessman's outfit.

Drawing cartoons is not an excuse to half-ass your drawings ;)

The best advice I can give you is keep on drawing and you'll improve :)

Here you go! That's a pretty rad ghost you've got there.

I didn't understand why you'd need to use a mask.
I simply added another layer called 'shading' and drew with 50% opacity to achieve the same effect.

Alternatively, you could try drawing the shading with brown color (for example), convert it to MC and add a 'Darken' filter for more interesting results =P

This is not how I shade my characters but it it works for you, go for it!

I'm not good at wording this so I made a quick animation for you. I picked the animations that I think need the most attention.
HERE!

1. The jump seems to lack power. The character doesn't have any actual limbs so it should really use the whole body to push itself off the ground. Even simple mushrooms like that can have many 'poses'. Try not to make the character too stiff.

2. The problem with the Magic animation is that it's not "3D". If the cap lifts of tilts, you should be able to see the under the cap. I was also wondering why not use the mouth since it seems to have one :D

While practicing animation it never hurts to practice drawing too. That way your characters don't end up looking like male genitalia :)