There are quite a few people out there that have some slick demos with very nicely animated characters. What I'd like to know is what editor you use and what general process you follow to make your animations. I'll go ahead and start so I can set the playing field but my process (and animations for that matter) are very much subpar. (that's why I'm asking! )

I use Paint Shop Pro 7.

1. Draw an outline of the character in all 4 directions. (I do mostly overhead RPG sprites.)

2. Copy the outline to a new layer, shift it a bit. Lather, rinse, repeat until I've worked up a complete animation for one direction. Repeat for the other 3.

3. Color in all the frames.

4. Put it all together.

One thing that I do know - the secret to good results is practice. I'll keep practicing but I want to make sure I'm practicing good process

You forgot:
4.5 Shade and Highlight

Aside from that, your method is fine. Here is what you probably lack though: Experience. It takes a long time to be able to bang out nice looking stuff. Trust me.

You just need practice, and "eventually" it'll look nicer.

I'm not an artist, but if you do straight overhead, it is very hard to impossible to get good looking images simply from the angle. You might get realistic looking or graphically good looking but unless you can see the face of the character it won't achieve an emotional effect. The old Final Fantasy games used an unrealisitic angle but it works well.

The benefit from doing pure overhead graphics is that Allegro's rotate_sprite method will work, reducing the amount of work you have to do.

Heh; I thought this was going to be about animations "engines" in code

I do my outlines on paper; I find it easier. But I don't make it too detailed. Just enough so I know where everything is. Then I scan in and add the details.

I use Graphics Gale, and generally I draw a monochrome silhouette for each frame. I get the transitions flowing as smooth as my bowels after an extremely way-too-spicey bowl of hot and sour soup I had when I was sick, block in the colour for each frame, and finally add details and outlines if needed.

If I need to figure out perspective or anything, I either do that on paper or I might even load up a 3D modeller for some prototyping.

I'd prefer a program with onion skin capabilities for this one. The previous frames would be displayed in the current frame by reducing the frame opacity by ~50% for each frame displayed backwards. The only program I know that does something like is Disney Animation Studio for Amiga.

Pro Motion has onion skinning and it's really great.

Then you don't know a lot of gfx programs, do you? Onion skinning is one of the most basic features for any editor with animation ambition.

And of course you can get the same effect by changing the opacity of your drawing layer

I'm a bit surprised. I do know graphic applications, but.. umm.. the dog ate the manuals! Yeah, that's it!

Yeah, but that's too much work.

I always shade the frames right after I've finished the outlines. Maybe because it's just easier to see the wholeness if everything looks more "3D" right from the beginning...

Heh; I was adding that to Bola a long time ago because I didn't know any programs that did that I should take a slightly closer look at GraphicsGale and ProMotion ...