Here's a AKIRA anim that started out just being a bike sprite. and it turned into something bigger.

I used a whole host of programs, once it got to a certain size programs would stop responding.
imageready couldn't handle the amount of frames, was hard to time everything in graphics gale, in the end I had to put it together in flash.

rider and bike are done with 16 colours.

cheers

heres a youtube link: [link]