Number of LEDs?

Yes, you should attempt. Just take it a step at a time.

First, make an LED blink. Then make an RGB LED rotate through its colors and few different ways. They try that with 8 RGB LEDs. An so on...

Work up to the scale you are looking for. That way the total complexity is digested a chunk at a time and pretty soon you won't even realize how complicated it is to drive a matrix of LEDs.