I'm trying to make a human model for an old game, and I'm not totally inexperienced at it, but the more I progress, the more I realise there's a lot I don't know. I don't really aim high in terms of aesthetic (we are talking about some very low poly stuff here: Gothic 2 quality at best) but I'm adamant on making decent and fluid animations. The model itself could use some corrections, too, but I'm not too sure how.

I feel I could really use some good tutorials on face modeling - and most importantly, animating - but can't find anything useful! All the good tutorials at cgtalk are really old and have missing images and 404 links, Youtube has a lot of videos on the subject, but very few are actually helpful.

Can someone point me out to a good modeling site, or perhaps even giving me some more direct advice?

My only thought at the moment is try to take a program that allows open modification, something like the creator kits for The Elder Scrolls games, and see if you can pull any models out of those to use as a reference. Failing that, other programs and games let you model a character's face and body, you might see about making your own character creator to use as a shortcut instead of making a new model every time. I can't really help you with websites.

Looking at professional made models is a good suggestion, thanks, but extracting them is kind of out of my league... firstly it requires some decent modeling software, wich I don't have, and secondly I know that converting formats with all data intact is a pain.

I'm self taught, so while it isn't great, most of the model is done already, rigging included. I'm just not satisfied with it. The face looks like crap from certain angles, it has surely some wasted polies and minor mistakes. Anatomy in general is way off, even for a character that is supposed to look cartoony. As for animations, I just keeping producing them without really understanding what am I doing, some look decent, other don't, and I can't tell why most of the time.

This is the best run cycle I could do, it took me perhaps 20 hours, and it still feels... off... somehow...

If you haven't already, import some reference images and scale them to your character, use multiple angles, and try to analyze what exactly is "off" about your model.

Watch videos of people running and try to analyze that as well. Extract reference images from the videos. At a given time offset, how do they look? How do you want your character to look?

I could never just pull out a model or animation from nowhere, always had to have a bunch of reference material as a spec to follow.

Well apart from GOG not handling animated GIFs properly, I'd have to say that the "offness" comes about from the hip/torso movement, or lack thereof. Unfortunately I can't really pin it down any further than that, but the character's torso and head don't really move at all, but his hips move along with his legs. So it sorta seems like his spine isn't connected all the way. Hope that helps.

Here you go:

DAZ 3D are currently offering their 3D software for free - from what I've seen it seems to be pretty good.

Blender is a high quality, free and open source modeling and animation program.

I'd like to, can't import images in my modeling program unfortunately. As for animating, at the moment I just put myself before a mirror and try to mime and memorise some positions. Youtube has some really nice slow-motion videos, but I just can't fully grasp the movement essence without looking from multiple point of views.
Where do you get your reference material from? They already moved a bit, but I guess the gif is too small to notice. The torso usually doesn't move that much, it just compensates hips rotation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgaxkcvsmv8
But, you know what? You're literally the first person that ever gave me an opinion other than "I like it / it sucks", thanks a bunch! I followed your advice and tweaked the movement a bit, does it look better now? Not saying it's a bad idea, but that means I should:

-learn to use a new program
-find a source of premade model files: free models are usually not animated. Most games don't keep model files separated from the game data.
-hope a converter for that particular model format exist, is not bugged, and can keep all the data intact.

Neither Blender or Hexagon are compatible with the MDX format, wich is what I need, so I'm stuck with my current tools anyway. All in all, it's just easier and faster to learn from tutorials or videos.