Made the graphics in Paint.NET, but since it doesn't do anigifs, I copied the frames over to (ugh) Microsoft GIF Animator. Ancient piece of garbage, I know.
As far as the 4x vs. 1x pixels go, though, yeah, I could easily scale down to 1x, which I admit is more "proper." Easier to see at 100% zoom this way, which is the main reason I did that.