Yeah, unless you built them in pieces, it would take forever to animate those things. Then again, if it's for a job at a game firm, it's all in a day's work
I can understand how you do the shading... imagine the light source, draw invisible lines, aka rays of light to find out where shadows would be cast, where gradients would gradate. But I could still never do it cause I'm too damn impatient.
The background looks really familiar... I've seen something just like it somewhere... maybe on some SNES game, or maybe from Metal Slug.
Awesome.
Dr. Wario