Brave_Shyguy's Sprites! (Need help with run)

Why hello there, thanks for being interested in my gallery and this opening sentence! I hope you guys are receptive to my sprites, and like them.

You can see all of the work I make and that I view as good here:
http://braveshyguy.deviantart.com/

Right now, I'm working on Sephiroth's run. I really need help with this, as I suck at runs, so I'm asking the spriters and animators out there for help. How can I fix it? I'll keep on editing it 'til its perfect or close.

Here was the run I made for my first older version of Sephiroth:

Its not too good, but it doesn't have to be fixed anyways because I'm only working on my new one now.

Ok, now on to my new Sephiroth run... I'm trying to make it like it is in this Dissidia YouTube video(roughly the first 6 seconds):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X770IGCEnAQ&NR=1
I think I made three frames looking at stopped frames of the video, but he moves too fast to make the traditional 8 frames. So I decided to look at Dark Riku's run in CoM to determine foot placement, leg movement, some arm movement, etc.

It doesn't look too much like either. Here's my first attempt:

Then I removed the hair(I'll add that last), changed the left arm movement so it wasn't like a hinge, and changed the right arm to make this:

Still prett- No, REALLY bad. I need help, so please do so if you can.

Here's the sheet for both fail runs:

Firstly, you need to stay consistent with the shading.
If you don't, the arm looks like it's crawling with bugs.
Second, use a guide instead of just freehanding it -- it's not going to turn out too well if you just freehand it.
For example, if you look at my archer, you will see that for the arms I used red shapes to define where the elbow, shoulder and hand were going to be.

I think spriting is a lot easier if you're good at drawing.

Also, try looking at these, see if they help;
-General tips topic.
-Advanced Paint Techniques.

Thanks, do you have like any criticism specific to Sephiroth's run, not spriting in general?

Well, the main things I were pointing out were left-arm specific.