Well it's a good thing you asked. Animation  is the sequencing of imagery to produce the  

illusion of movement. Or, the less  pretentious way of putting it would  

be “drawing a bunch of pictures to  make something look like it moves”. 

Humans have got really good at this.  We use digital animation in our movies,  

tv shows and games to express creative  ideas and enhance our storytelling.

So how do we go from a static drawing into a fully  animated video or gif? Well the first step is to  

add frames to the artwork using your program  of choice. After we've modified these duplicate  

frames, we can display them back-to-back, each  for a certain period of time. We call the number  

of frames shown in one second the frame rate,  which leads me into my first major point: Timing.

Standard television is around 24 frames  a second. So one of the most common frame  

rates for animating pixel art is 12 frames  a second. Which, you'll notice, is half the  

speed of 24. People like to refer to animating  on every second frame as 'Animating on Twos'.  

For beginners, and even pros, I think 12 frames  a second is a fantastic choice, because the more  

frames you have means more work, but less frames  can be less smooth, and 12 frames a second walks  

that line perfectly. But how do we draw when  we want to make these adjustments to every  

frame across this 12 fps animation? Well here's  the simple concept: the number of pixels moved  

between frames determines the speed. Cause, you  know? Speed equals distance divided by time. Also  

be mindful of how long a frame will be displayed.  It's usually shorter than you think because you'll  

spend longer looking at it while you draw. And  for us on 12 fps, it'll be a twelfth of a second.

I think it's time for Part 2, which I'm gonna call  

“Planning” It's one of those  things that no-one likes to do,  

but it really enables you to create much better  animations in half the time. Don't get me wrong,  

I never liked to plan out the movement for my  animations, until I realised how useful it was.

It's so easy to get lost trying to create  animations from a static sprite by shifting  

pieces around and playing with individual  pixels. But this often results in an awkward  

animation. Animation isn't about the lighting  or the character. Animation is about movement.  

We need to separate the aesthetic of  the static image from its movement  

and focus only on that movement. Once we have  the really nice foundation of good movement,  

we can begin to put the  'skin' back on the character.

Instead of investing time and energy into  polishing every frame as we go, the best way is  

to simplify the subject into its most primitive  shapes, and make these shapes move fluidly. 

For a humanoid character, that would be a  different coloured shape for each limb. For fabric  

or cloth, create a chain of dots with delayed  reactions to the movement of the dots above. Each  

segment reacts like links in a chain, but once  you average out the movement with a curved line,  

it can be used for anything organic. So it's kind  of like drawing the skeleton of your character.

Sometimes, you want an object to jump or  fall. Probably one the most overused cliches  

of animation tutorials (besides the slime) is  the bouncing ball. They always show a curved  

parabola to demonstrate the path of the ball. I  never saw myself actually drawing this line for  

an animation, but it's just one of those planning  things that really helps improve the final product  

and, more importantly, ease the process. I would  100% recommend drawing a quick line for the path  

of your animation. Because then you only have to  think about the object's speed and not the path.

I think I've said enough about planning. Yes, it  can be a pain but it's a much better alternative  

to having to start a high-fidelity  animation all over again from scratch.

Here are some quick tips to improve  your actual animation and movement.  

Because I haven't really talked  about how to improve your motion yet.

For a weapon attack, a common mistake is to depict  every single frame. You can see as this axe is  

swung, there are five unique frames as it's held  at different angles. The point is, sometimes you  

want Impact. To make your movement nice and  crunchy, don't worry about drawing so many  

frames. Just do a couple. If something is moving  that fast, it won't be on-screen for very long.  

Of course, this can look choppy, so a remedy  for fewer frames is a technique called smearing.  

Smearing acts like motion blur does in real  footage by stretching the object into a blotch of  

colour that signifies direction. This shape tells  us both the speed and the direction the subject  

is moving. Like a lot of things, smearing is good  in moderation. Before a drastic movement, winding  

up or providing some anticipation frames can be a  super nice touch. You can hold these frames for as  

long as you want. Something else that also sells  impact is secondary animation. Secondary animation  

is where things in your world react to the primary  movement. Think of it like cause and effect.  

If a heavy thing is dropped here, these  lighter things might jump up because of it.

Ooh, okay I want to talk to  you about easing in and out.  

If there's one thing to take away from this video  it would be easing in and out. To ease in and out,  

exponentially decrease the distance your sprite  moves for the start and end of its movement.  

This will make it accelerate and decelerate,  and therefore feel more lifelike.  

Like we said before, the commonl rule is that the  distance between frames will determine the speed,  

so the way you arrange these distances  will influence your object's acceleration.  

Compress your distances so it moves 1 or 2  pixels at the start and 8 or 9 in the middle.

But what if you want to move something  slower than one pixel per frame? 

An advanced technique we can use allows us to  move half a pixel without actually breaking the  

bounds of the pixel grid! It's called sub-pixel  animation and it's useful to smooth out subtle  

animations or movements, like idle animations. But  how can we do it? We need to add more frames to  

the animation, and go to the pixel level, smearing  and smoothing individual pixel transitions. We're  

leaving traces of these small pixels to simulate  a blur effect, and the illusion of half-pixels.  

Consider it the anti-aliasing of animation. We  can also use the outline or shape of the subject  

to our advantage, editing its  form to improve smoothness.  

Here's the original sprite moving up and down one  pixel. And here's a zoomed in selection of just  

one of the sprite's pixels moving up and down.  It's like a switch, isn't it? On, off, on, off.  

Expanding the number of frames used, value  can be used to transition between full  

colour and transparency for each pixel,  giving the effect of smoother motion. 

Overshooting is when your subject goes just  that little bit too far with their movement.  

It can help to make your subject more animated  or lively. Nonetheless, a nice technique to  

have in your toolbox. And remember it can  be used for animating inanimate objects.

Another thing that I've seen beginners  do, and something that I've done myself,  

is to restrict a character's movement and to  not go very big with the swings and walks.  

Always go for over-exaggerated, bigger  movements. It takes time and planning,  

but it's much better than a walk cycle  with only a one-pixel shift in the legs.

And when designing your character,  give them features that will allow  

your eye to track the right  details to help with clarity.

Wow there's so much to learn.  So much for me to learn too.  

Well hopefully you'll join me on my journey as  we learn how to become pixel art pros, together.