took like 5 years
bahaha.
But yeah seriously if it takes hours to animate a smiley you're either just starting out or were on drugs when you started.
Perfectionism is one thing, just plain slow is another.
However, you've been kicked in the guts long enough. Just take care not to say retarded shit on forums, people tend to call you out on it more than they would IRL. "Animating is hard" != "smileys take between hours and days to animate".
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The stuff Schoc posted is all you really need to get started, then comes the hours and hours and hours of actually doing it to get your skillset together, with a healthy amount of taking in new art in between. Drawing (non pixel) helps too, as does regularly posting your work for criticism
Best of luck!