Animation is a huge topic, and I’m not going to pretend to cover everything. This tutorial is only going to cover a few of the most basic ideas that will be important going forward in pixel art—if you’re interested in animation (and even if you’re not), you should search around for more detailed articles (or books) about animation.

Watch any old school cartoon (Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes) and you’ll see the following techniques used all over the place. Animating for pixel art is different from traditional animation because you won’t be animating entire scenes at a time—most of the time you’ll be working with individual sprites: characters and objects. But the useful tools and principles are the same.  The following techniques are used to give an object weight.

As weight guides motion, simulating weight is how good animation becomes believable. Continue reading