I'm wanting some help regarding making a better quality shifting image. Below, I have an icon that switches between New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi U. However, to make it switch between the two, I made it into an animated GIF with Easy GIF animator, but the quality suffered significantly as a result:



Here's the original source pictures used:





I know that I'll need to find a way to make it animated while not being in GIF format, or stop it from losing its quality when converted to GIF format. The end product I'm hoping for is an good quality icon that'll switch between the two images every five seconds or so.

So does anyone have any suggestions, whether it be techniques or programs to use?