At first, I wanted to just change that frame by frame. For the first 10 or so frames, it looked like I would succeed, but after another five, it looked like a mess.
So I came up with the idea of modeling a lion in Blender, and animating it frame-by frame, and capturing that for the animation. 
Hence my current little project. I modeled a lion, using the cover art as the source, but in 2D only: it's a 3D shape, but only looks proper in 2D. I attached bones to many important joints, and I can easily frame a position and save it. Now I am in frame 5, but will probably need at least 20 frames, easily more for one complete running cycle.
If I like how it comes out, how many of you would be interested in the blender files that I will make? Blender is a free, open-source 3D modeling program made for all major OS's, and even some of the smaller ones.
