Draw a character in a starting pose. This will serve as the base for all of your other animations. A simple animation is to create a character waving. Draw the head, body and legs of the character. Place the arm that will be waving above the head with the hand open. Make sure there is a slight bend in the elbow to keep the pose natural.
Trace over the previous picture copying everything except the waving arm and the eyebrows. Redraw the waving arm so that it is extending out diagonally. The elbow should now be completely straight. Redraw the eyebrows so that they are tilting inward toward each other. This will keep some slight movement in the picture so it won't look like the arm is the only section being animated.
Trace over the picture everywhere except the waving arm and the eyebrows. Draw the waving arm so that it is now pointing straight up. There should be a slight bend in the elbow but not as much as there is in Step 1. Draw the eyebrows tilting almost diagonally down. This will show the slight effort in the characters face from waving.
Repeat steps 1-3 until you feel that the character has waved for long enough. Take a digital photo of each drawing so that you import the pictures into your computer. Using a computer program like iMovie or Movie Magic you can string a series of illustrations together sequentially to create an animation effect.