Graphics Attack animations and small sprites

What is the best way to go about making a small sprite and animating it with a long weapon ?
I was thinking 64x64 or 100x100 in size

 

I've seen small sprites doing good attack animations. It is up to the artist's skill to convey movement with a small amount of pixels. I'd say first select a consistent size to your characters and enemies and build around that. Sprite animation tools should let you easily enargen the canvas if you run into problems with space.

 

64 or a 100 is large enough to get good animations. Skill more important than size

 

I'd recommend 32 x 32 if this is your first rodeo. If you're going for HD, vector art, or digital painting, you might want to do 64 x 64+

 

Try using 32x32 for the character's idle sprite and swapping to something like 64x32 for the attack and just making sure the sprite origin remains in the same place