Alright, lesson 2. I know it took a while, but I'm busy, eh? This will be a quick lesson on animation.

Now remember, we start with a base, I'll scribble ya one out real quick.

Sweet I wasn't expecting that, looks like a Disco Wizard, maybe he should dance? No, I have a better idea. Let's work on him some more to make him detailed and nice looking.

Great, now this is all rather simple so I shouldn't need to point anything out, now we'll make a 4 frame animation composed of 3 sprites. the order will be like this 1 2 1 3. This is how four framed walking animations work, wich I will demonstrate in a bit.

First of all, remember 1, 2, 1, 3. Got it? Good. Now I didn't look at this animation but lemme explain what I did... The ball floats up and down, in 2 it goes down one pixel and in 3 it goes up one pixel (compared to frame 1) and it glows, see? Notice how the Wizards hands darken and ligten depending on the ball. Also his hair moves (similar to how the ball moves) and a cape moves only in the first frame, wich makes it every other frame. Now this is a very simple animation and it did not take very long at all, I don't know if it teaches much, but let's have a look.

This guy rocks, I think he should be my mascot. My 'handle' is Wiz anyway. Now let me show you some KR sprites.

See that? look at the walking animations and you'll be able to tell again it's 1, 2, 1, 3. This combination works very well with small sprites but if your making a biggun, you need more frames. Otherwise you got some choppy animation. Now I've been bugged alot about making an animation lesson, and I don't really know what to say about the drawing of animated frames exept this. Work off of the most similar frame you have to the desired result. So to make the 2, and 3 frames of the walking, I always work off of the 1, for the laughing, I worked off of the south frame. then you only need to move the arms, legs, cape and hair. Other then that, each frame should be treated like drawing just another still sprite. Always working off the most similar one you have. Now before this lesson is over, I want to show you the awesome walking Magus animation from Chrono Trigger.

See very smooth and sexy. Look at how the clothes move and the shiney thing shines. Notice that there is no pattern, the first frame is standing only. It's really just 3 frames, and then the same 3 frames flipped the other way. Alright, I'm outta here. Hope this helped.

*Update - I re-drew the gun and arm every frame, that's why it looks so good. To make this animation perfect one would just have to make it breath, and fix the gun flash.