Awesome! As a guy who's currently studying game design, i can confirm that it's cool and you should indeed get into it. :U
As for how long it took me, 1-2 hours a piece, ish. The idle animation was a bit quicker, but it's also at a lower frame rate and is a much simpler animation overall. It's by no means a fast process, but seeing the final animation come together is just cool as hell. c: