Tips needed to animate a basic muzzle flash

[Professor Von-Wulfen ]

Hello all.
I started to learn pixel art using Aseprite yesterday.
I have created a basic character as my first project and now want to try animating a muzzle flash. The image was created on 1 frame but im unsure how I should approach the muzzle flash animation, actually, animation in general.
Would anyone be so kind as to give me some tips on how to best go about this?
Cheers
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2787887650

[Professor Von-Wulfen ]

I figured out how to do a basic muzzle flash animation. Will upload the image once I figure out to to turn it into a gif.

[Professor Von-Wulfen ]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2787955323
Finally figured it out :)

[Yazzy8]

Hey, this is coming from someone who has used Aseprite for a long time, when he shoots the gun it should have some recoil to make it look like it has more impact. The thing about pixel art is you need to have a lot of impact because the simplicity of pixel art will look terrible if only one thing is animated, think about a real gun, what else moves when you shoot it. i don't know if anything i said made sense but hopefully it did.

[Professor Von-Wulfen ]

Originally posted by Yazzy8:

Hey, this is coming from someone who has used Aseprite for a long time, when he shoots the gun it should have some recoil to make it look like it has more impact. The thing about pixel art is you need to have a lot of impact because the simplicity of pixel art will look terrible if only one thing is animated, think about a real gun, what else moves when you shoot it. i don't know if anything i said made sense but hopefully it did.

Hi. Thanks for the feedback.
Recoil was next step I was thinking about.
Not sure why, but it does not show the text when you click the gif but I mention it there.
I was planing on shortening the arm slightly on one frame then returning the arm to full length on the next frame etc. Not sure if will give the effect of recoil but worth experimenting.
I may try raising the angle of the gun as well on firing etc.