Character Animation

[MrHallows]

Hey, guys. I'm currently trying to figure out how to animate the main character for a game I'm working on, but I honestly have not a clue how to animate pixel art. (Art is not my strongest point. I'm a programmer.) I have looked all around online for animation tutorials, but I can't seem to find much. Anyway, here is my character so far:



I just wanted to know how to give him the normal animations (walk, run, jump, fire a weapon, climb..) I am not asking you to animate it for me or anything, I just need to know the basics and where to start.
Thank you!

[Conzeit]

You know, we really should make a community activity out of finding all of pixel piledriver's post on the basics and organize them. His stuff is probably better than most tutorials online.

aaaaaanyway

jumps and shooting guns are not really considered basics in general animation theory. But walkcycles are.

So I could easily find this walkcycle tutorial
http://www.animatorisland.com/secret-of-animation-walks-simplified/

12 principles of animation. good starter. although I've never really agreed with appeal :p
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation

Here is the animator's survival kit (bible :p )
http://=http//www.scribd.com/doc/26829442/Animator-s-Survival-Kit

and a list of basic trough advanced excercises you can work on to get a general idea of what are the principles of animation
http://www.animatorisland.com/51-great-animation-exercises-to-master/

animation is mostly about observation, so learn the principles in there and when you need to do an animation think of which apply and which dont, then execute =O

sorry if my post aint that customized to you but...you did ask for basics :p

[MrHallows]

Dude, that is perfect. Thank you so much. I have been looking through tons of threads on this site and wow, some of the people on here are extremely good at animation. It blows my mind! Plus, I feel like pixel art animation is so much more difficult than regular animation (drawings), so learning this will take me some time.