Animated Smilies

How might I create my own customizable animated smilies for such things as my LiveJournal and the like?

The defaults and ones offered are rather... drab...

You'll have to create each frame in a program like Paint or Photoshop, then string each frame together to make an animated GIF in a program that can do such things. I use Imageready, but it's not free. I'm not sure what people who aren't willing to pirate spend the money use.

Alright, I shall soon take buy Imageready to string together my "smilieframes"...

Thanks roto.

Bonus time.

Back in the day when I wanted to learn to make animated GIFs in Imageready, I had no clue how to do it. I posted my woes in this forum and Rye gave me this handy dandy tutorial. Keep that for when you're ready to begin.