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It just looks really robotic at the moment and I'm not sure how to fix it, any advice?

Possible points of improvement:
1. Head and shoulders stay at same position even when arms fling around wildly. Upper body needs to balance weight shift.
2. Eyes don't roll. They only move that slowly when they follow a slowly moving object. Otherwise they change position very fast and stay there. (No inbetween.)
3. Avoid that totally smmetric front view. Try something just a bit to teh side, then just a bit more to the other side. That way you also have more head movement with the opportunity to some small follow throuh of the bangs.
4. Is that supposed to be heavy breathing in the middle? Do it yourself and notice that your head moves as well.

I like your notes, slowtiger, and to that I would add that to avoid such mechanical acting I always redraw the entire figure throughout all its inbetweens. This labor saving device of splitting a single action of a character into several layers is not a good idea and should be avoided, as this example exemplifies. If you would to draw each frame as an entirely new drawing, you would get bored by mechanically tracing previous frames, which would push you into a proper dynamic style of acting.

That and for the lone artist I find that splitting things into too many layers ends up taking longer and seems like more work than just drawing it over on each frame.

I find that splitting things into too many layers ends up taking longer and seems like more work than just drawing it over on each frame.

It depends ... partly on your experience with the process, and mostly on when to use it. Surely you shouldn't split parts while still doing roughs, as most likely you will loose the internal connection between them, the line of action, the tension. But for cleanup and coloring it's totally OK (if it fits the style).

There seems to be no general rule here. I tested several procedures, all with the aim of saving workload, and found that often I can do a new cleanup plus colour faster than fiddle with different layers, sort out which frame will be re-used where, and so on. And it also depends on "will the audience notice", which size are the characters, does the outline need to be alive, etc.

I still struggle with getting away from too clean and too exact drawings. Right now it helps to start with a fully coloured scene layout - it's very dark stuff - to avoid too small movements and unnecessary details.

slowtiger wrote: I still struggle with getting away from too clean and too exact drawings. Right now it helps to start with a fully coloured scene layout - it's very dark stuff - to avoid too small movements and unnecessary details.

I struggled with that for quite some time, but I think I found my comfortable medium now. Since that I am experimenting with even more "natural" looks and style. I am glad TVP gives so many possibilities!