Painting animation is very very hard for begginers.
Also, you can do it in Microsoft Paint but it is so limited that you can't see any professional artisti using it. You're far better off Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp and any other high-level image editing\creation package.
Just don't go towards vector stuff like Corel Draw, it's not up for the task.
Now, to draw animation, you need to know what cycles you wanna make. Is it an attack cycle? walking\running?
You need to separate the entire movement of that cycle into frames. Now comes a relation with time: the more frames, the slower the animation will be. The fewer, the faster.
You can google lots of free material about animation.
Here's a starter: http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml
http://www.awn.com/qas/60.html
http://www.anticz.com/Walks.htm
And the best reference is, of course, real life. If you have a [crazy] friend, ask him to record you with a camera while you do the movements as clearly and purely as possible. Then load that into the computer or print into sheets and trace that to your character - that's how Prince of Persia's fluid lifelike animation was made.
Also, you can do it in Microsoft Paint but it is so limited that you can't see any professional artisti using it. You're far better off Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp and any other high-level image editing\creation package.
Just don't go towards vector stuff like Corel Draw, it's not up for the task.
Now, to draw animation, you need to know what cycles you wanna make. Is it an attack cycle? walking\running?
You need to separate the entire movement of that cycle into frames. Now comes a relation with time: the more frames, the slower the animation will be. The fewer, the faster.
You can google lots of free material about animation.
Here's a starter: http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml
http://www.awn.com/qas/60.html
http://www.anticz.com/Walks.htm
And the best reference is, of course, real life. If you have a [crazy] friend, ask him to record you with a camera while you do the movements as clearly and purely as possible. Then load that into the computer or print into sheets and trace that to your character - that's how Prince of Persia's fluid lifelike animation was made.