Thank you!
I did use GIMP to animate into a gif but idk, I've always used MS Paint for spriting because it was quick and efficient at simply editing and moving pixels around without layer management (also I'm extremely used to it since my very early days used MS Paint for sprites, like if you ever saw my work at MFGG, all was made with MS Paint) (plus I didn't have GIMP installed in this computer last night and no internet because derp). Paint.net could also be better too. Animation is a pain, I typically abuse the redo and undo function on top of the sprites to get a glimpse of how it looks.
I think there are dedicated sprite-making programs out there that will ease the process of animation. I remember my MAD teacher at school showed me such a program, but I forgot its name. For now though, I'm looking at other characters' sprites to at least get a walking animation done.