ID:258328
 
Please, before you even read this, know that this is a work-in-progress in all aspects of the phrase.
I started with some basic scribbles, turned that into lineart, then sort of just doodled crap. I don't want to keep working on it without hearing what you guys have to say. I kind of want it to be megapwn, so please, if you have any suggestions, crits, etc, post them.

This is my project of pixeling Ragnaros, a boss in World of Warcraft. In WoW, he towers over players, but for my adaptation I don't want him that huge. I don't want to copy him pixel for pixel either though. I kind of just want the same theme / concept, with the fire body and floating'ish armor with a huge ass mace. Here are some ref' shots.
Ref 1
Ref 2

And here is mine;

All red is just a placeholder, to show general shape/anatomy. (Ignore mallet hands xD.)
You have a monumental task ahead of you if you're going to animate him. His torso is basically a lava tornado funneling up from the pit he stands in. He's always swaying side to side as the lava tornado spins around shifting his weight. This should give you an idea of how large he is compared to normal players. You must remember he's not made of fire, he's molten lava. It's the lava which is on fire.

I think it would be best to just stick to generic circles and armor while you're animating him. Draw him as just chunks of molten lava which isn't on fire. When you're done with that and his animations are ready, draw fire overlays for the different parts of his body. You can move the fire around with pixel offsets while he's moving in-game. That way the fire will always be consistently be animated while he's moving around rather than having the fire skip around because it's locked to his animation sequence.
In response to SuperAntx
Thanks Superant. I realize how large he is, since I've actually downed him ingame. I don't want to do the same exact thing, but more of the general idea. I kind of deserve a slap in the face for thinking he was made of fire, I see now that he is a molten boss, hence the Molten Core (his domain xD). I'm going to have a tough time drawing lava since I have no experience with that what-so ever.

Guess I'm going to find some helpful lava tuts. Anyone got a favorite one handy?