animated avatar

howdy
i alrdy googled and talked to inu cause i want an animated avatar.
the eagle's wings should go up and down like he's trying to fly
but i have 2 problems
i dont know if theres a (legal <_<) free way to create .gif animations
and i dunno how to edit the picture that it looks like he's trying to fly
please help...thanks

I honestly have no idea, except for in Adobe After Effects you can render a video out as a .gif image

Here you go Lukking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-9_HwRcd1A
I've done this before, it's quite easy ^^

Gimp is free and you can make animated avatars with it
as for editing the picture to make the animation, it's similar to freating an animation with a flip book, except for a picture editor like gimp, all you do is add multiple layers on top of the original picture where each picture is a new frame. once you've done that, there should be an option in the top menu that says animation on it to let you view what your intending to do. Finally, when you're satisfied, save it as a gif file, but make sure you choose the option for a multilayerred gif, otherwise you will just get a flat image with no animation.

Anyway, it's been a while since I've created an animated avatar myself, but, that's the idea of creating an animated avatar.

Is there some restriction on animated avatars? I tried setting mine with a .gif but it just turned into a still image of the first frame.

Try gimp, it's like ms paint, but more awesome and allows that.