That mockup still looks awesome.
As for who .TakaM is, we shall never know... <_<... maybe he is -==GOD==-... >_>
Not to mention that he's an unbelievable !@#$% who tried to invade ZFGC with some stupid ass-comments. He was right when saying that there're hardly good sprites and spriters out there, but writing "that sprite sucks" is a sign of immaturity or stupidness or... he got high on his skills. Because he is really skilled and I'd admire him more if he wasn't such a !@#$%. Damn. He was my shining exam...
... no, let's not get into this. I just wanted you to know that there's an other side to .TakaM, too. Sadly.
As for the mock-up, you can call me whiny !@#$%, but...
The animation is a bit choppy.
The magic-bar lags of detail and structure.
The same goes for the octopus...
And all in all, six frames is fun to work on and it sure looks good, but... if you get the hang of it, it's not THAT special. I know I'm being an idiot here, but... that's not too special. (Also, .TakaM did way better...)
However, I must say that the waves behind the KorL, the KorL himself and the lineart and everything of the octopus is very sweet.
What I'm trying to say though is... you shouldn't get all happy about EVERY sprite. Make demands. Hell, I've seen so many sprites and thought "Hm, yeah, nice, but lags shading, needs better colour there... but nice..." and then there were at least five forum-!@#$%-comments like "ITS AWESOME!!" "OMG BEST SPRITE EVER LOL" and EVERYTHING. Some guys even write the same comments over and over again, sometimes the sprite sucked HORRIBLY as in make-it-new-from-the-scratch and the same people kept saying "THAT WINS LOL".
... I think that it what was pissing .TakaM off, too....