Experiment- 3D Sprite Animation

I've always loved sprite animation.  It stems from my childhood, as my parents forbade me to play video games, and I would go to a friend's house to play some console that (I think) predated Intellivision and Calecovision.  There was a black and white game of cowboys attempting to shoot each other through a field of mushrooms, the cowboys themselves only consisted of a handful of pixels.

Fast forward a few years, after the explosion of the NES, I was still forced to experience games at friends' houses.  I would play, but I sucked since I was the only one that didn't have my own Nintendo, so my turn would last a fraction of the time my friends' would.  I spent much more time watching than playing, and was captivated by the animation, like the 5-pixel cowboys, the simplicity of the resolution of the sprites forced your imagination to fill in the blanks.  However, the color palette and 8-bit processor were able to suggest an entire illustrated world, rather than just a rough concept of action.

Sadly sprite art is dying due to the advancement of 3D in games.  There are still some artists around, I really love the work of Paul Roberts- http://probertson.livejournal.com/33796.html.

Anyway the point of this boring trip into my past is that I want to try an experiment, trying to create the feel of 2d sprite animation in 3D.  As a subject, I will be using actual 8-bit sprites from my favorite NES series, Megaman/Rockman.  This is so that my success or failure depends on my translation of the sprite into 3 dimensions, and not the design of the sprite itself.  I'm choosing an 8-bit sprite not only because of nostalgia, but also because it will be easier to deal with logistically.

It'll either be something new awesome, and original, or not work at all.  Wish me luck. . .