Animating where should one start ?

Hi

I'm quite new to stencyl but so far I've been loving it. It's hard to master as I'm only a beginner in programming but I get along well thanks to the kind community and hard effort.
I've been making websites, logo's, ... for the last 10 years and I'm still rather new to animations.
I wonder how to get started and if anyone could point me out some tips or some good tutorials or examples or anything that can help me out.
I'm not sure if I have what it takes to make animations but i would get a greater satisfaction out of my games if I could do my own instaid of buying sprites.

some of my work: http://dribbble.com/Mikomi

thanks

I actually have a great answer to this. Do a google image search for "sprite sheet". You'll see pictures like this one:

http://gamemedia.wcgame.ru/data/2011-07-17/game-sprite-sheet.jpg

Animating a character is simply a matter of creating each frame of the character's movement separately and then stringing them all together. So by using examples like the one above, you can draw your own characters in several phases of a movement and combine those images in Stencyl for a successful animation.

There are a lot of books about the theme. For example this (it´s a classical):
http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Animation-Collectors-Preston-Blair/dp/1560100842
But the only thruth is that you can learn animation... doing animations. Your first ones probably will be horrible, but as you progress you will be more confortable and  your animations will become better and better.

Another question, more on the executing of making a sprite.
Since I'm a designer I own photoshop, is this the way to go ? do animation artists use photoshop to make animations ?
If so, just making a layer on top of each other ? I find it hard to predict where i should move the limbs to to create a "realistic" movement.
I'll go to the bookstore this weekend, maybe i'll find some good books to get me started.
thanks for the tip on the amazon one i'll check in the local shop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_RcC5tvs1k&feature=endscreen&NR=1

anyone knows wich software he is using ? I own a wacom intuos and this software seems much more friendly then photoshop to create animations.

thanks

Hmm i dont know what that program is called, but it seems really nice, and i also wanna know, but i found another program similar.
http://www.pencil-animation.org/

Just practice, and you will get better. Tutorials are good to start, but after you have a good idea of how to use the software you just have to practice. I use Adobe Flash for my animations, but if I were to do pixel art I would use Gimp. You say you have photoshop which is really just a paid version of Gimp from what I hear, so your good to go.

I guess the only tip I can give is to start out with small animations of small sprites. Like a 2 frame walk cycle or something. That is at least what I did.

BOOK: "the animators survival kit"
PROGRAM: Flash

Have fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_RcC5tvs1k&feature=endscreen&NR=1

anyone knows wich software he is using ? I own a wacom intuos and this software seems much more friendly then photoshop to create animations.

thanks

I think he's using Toon Boom Animate (pro), quite easy if you know Flash a bit. Pricey though.
In the Photoshop Extended edition (part of production/master suite) there is the option to do motion/animation with a timeline.

i've got the animation window in my photoshop but i don't know how i can make the onion skin effect without having to adjust settings for each new frame (layers & animation settings)

i think in his problem he presses "+" a new frame shows up and the one before is auto onion skinned.
probably added to the timeline as well. this seems great for learning animation.

Try this program. It´s free!:
http://www.pencil-animation.org/