I want to give it a go.
I am not on the level of PIC's artwork, but reckon it is not impossible to create a few animation loops at the game's level of quality with the right setup and enough time.
I already tried setting up references in Poser and can export them into blender to get accurate lighting and shadows (I suspect Pixel Factory did something similiar with a 3D editor, as you pointed out, as their shadows are on point).
Once happy with the animation loop in 3D I will redraw the frames in Photoshop. The 3D models will serve as references, but, obviously, clothes, hair and other bits will be drawn from scratch. I've used this method before for digital art with results that would probably be decent enough for the low res sprites.
The most challenging bit will be the animation itself... A single animation loop in PIC is 4 frames, so it's not too massive of a commitment, but is going to take time and effort. I was thinking of trying a couple of animation loops but let's see how things go...
I have no interest in doing something like this professionally, just wanted to see what else can be accomplished with this animation style / method in a side scroller.
Regarding compensation, I was not expecting hundreds of $, just wondering whether anyone would offer amything, as from experience, doing this properly takes me ages... But I am OK with just trying it on my own. Will not be feeling any pressure from outside this way.
Here's a link to my old other Pixiv account. I haven't posted there in ages and ther's not much o there, but will give a rough general idea...
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I was not planning on using AI for this, as I've never gotten round to learning the tools and just want to draw it all myself. It may actually be very beneficial if done properly and enable single perso projects of this calibre. But we're not there yet.