I usually make mine on Adobe Photo Deluxe, or Paint Shop, though I used paint on my axe.
We have a program to animate them somewhere... I don't know where at the moment... but I don't think it was too expensive...
If anyone knows where I could find Star Wars animations now... I spend a lot of time trying to find LOTR ones... snrk.
And no, Maeggaladiel, you don't have to type in the 'JPEG'. If the program cand save as JPEG, then look down. There should be a scroller button. However, in my experience with Paint, I can only save as Bitmap. Not TIF, or GIF, or JPEG, but Bitmaps. Dang thing.
The Barrow-downs needs more icons. I think I'm going to try make a leaf one now...
Oh, and thanks for reviewing the Candies of Doom, Amariden! I've started on the sequel, if you're interested...
-Eowyn Skywalker