Creating 4 images is a good way to do it so you have 4 frames of an animation, but you can do it in code using a precalculated array. Oh and 4 frames would not look that great, it would be better to have around 16 frames.
I find it easier to do and array than hand drawing 16 of the same character. You can find a great tutorial on this at blitzcoder in the tutorials section under precalculated arrays.
I find it easier to do and array than hand drawing 16 of the same character. You can find a great tutorial on this at blitzcoder in the tutorials section under precalculated arrays.