Hey cheers for all the input guys, I really appreciate it 

Sonic 3D's a wicked example cheers. Comparing the pre-rendered sprites of Sonic 3D to the pixelled sprites of Sonic 2/3,
(which are pretty similar size-wise)
shows a pretty good indication of the difference in clarity, and all of the people that i've shown so far find the hand
pixelled sprites more aesthetically pleasing.

Gil, yeah sorry my first post is pretty badly worded, I'm not trying to say that prerendered sprites have no artistic merit,
I believe that something beautiful can be made in almost any medium. Saying this however, most people here tend to agree
that the main merit of pre-rendered sprites isn't an artistic one i.e it's quicker to do certain things, and easier to get other
things looking right.

Essentially the reason I got onto this line of thought was that while looking into how 2d and 3d can be blended together,
I had to find examples of where the blending of 2d and 3d have worked well, and where they haven't. Pre-rendered sprites
IMO are a bad blend of 2d and 3d because they dont play to the strengths of either dimension. They lose the physicality of 3d,
while also losing the pixel perfect nature of hand-pixelled graphics.

Thanks again guys, I'll check out those shock troopers games asap ben

Froli: I think I prefer the green one 


still really rough, just wanted to fill in the gap.

any chance I could grab 20?

Man I can't believe how fast this thing filled up...

Yeah it's a pretty weird painting in that respect, I've never considered the character in it to be laughing at all, I've always seen it as more of a smirk.
But it's one of those odd cases where the title has become more famous than the piece itself; at least in my own experience.
With the animation I was hoping that people would be more inclined to see a cavalier who is obviously laughing and put 2 and 2 together,
as opposed to achieving a huge likeness to the painting itself which IMO just isn't as interesting as the title itself.
I hope it doesn't sound like i'm trying to worm my way out of a dodgy animation 
Because I am,
a bit
 

Hello all. I'm hoping to get this fella finished for the pixeljoint comp, but with deadlines looming that could be a problem.

But hell I'll give it my best shot. Here's the original painting by Frans Hals, if you don't recognise it;
and here's my rough WIP, which will have a simple 2 frame laughing animation.




I don't have a clue how I'm gonna do the various patterns and colours on his clothing, any suggestions would be very welcome