It is Saturday, June 11 at 9:13 AM.

I've done some research to find a free sprite editor and found a few tutorials on Youtube to help me feel comfortable creating my first experiment. This is 5 frames at 9 frames per second.

I've learned the basics - the vertical mirror pen, adding new frames, using the lighten/darken tool to evoke a sense of light and shadow, exporting a GIF to a larger size (from 32x32 to 224x224),

My next step is to learn how to create a basic character and walk cycle.

It is Saturday, June 11, 10:18 AM.

I've been working on a walk cycle. I learned how to use multiple layers in a single animation. At first I wanted to have a human character (myself) with arms and legs. However as I started to try and draw hair and animate all the pieces it was too many variables for my first walk cycle. I decided to simplify both the character design and the layers to only a body and two feet to make sure I could get the hang of it and not give up.

I animated the feet first and then realized I wanted to have a bit of bounce in the body. Then I saw the eyes and mouth being static looked really strange. So after a lot of tweaking I decided to have the eyes blink as the body stretched.

This is 5 frames of 32 px at 6 fps, and saved at 224x224.

I think I could use some practice with better shading, and I'd really like to be able to make a simple human caricature by the end of the weekend.

It is Saturday, June 11, 11:40 AM.

After trying to animate from the side, I realized it might be easier to animate a character front on to understand a walk cycle better. I also wanted the hat to wiggle and sparkle.

Diversity and inclusion is really important to me and I don't see enough in pixel art, so I wanted to be mindful of that when creating this. All of the research and examples I could find looked very similar, and I wanted to add something different with a similar aesthetic.