Inspiring use of 2D paintings to tell a story

It seems that a 2D painting is just a 2D painting. We can trick people by making it look like a 3D image by using depth, perspective, athmosphere and light. But it's still a flag image in the end.

3D animators can make the most amazing shots with their software but can a 2D painting be more than a 2D painting? What about adding movement?  Animation is something entirely different but there are some possibilities for 2D artists who don't specialize in animation. We can make our paintings look really cool, by moving them around, sometimes subtle movements can add great depth to our stories.

I especially like what the developers of Guild wars 2 did with their announcement trailer (and some other trailers) They took paintings of their concept artists and turned them into something more! It's best just to show you that trailer instead of talking on and on about it. 

I believe this can be done even with Photoshop's animation tool and some smart layering while painting the image.

For the game mysteries most mysterious that my classmates Ernst-Jan, Joost and me were working on we also added 2D assets with a looping frame by frame animation that gave the world a little bit more life.
A shot example of this game can be seen here. I was responsible for the background art and animations as well as the character colouring.

https://vimeo.com/104927919

I think 2D animation can be used to like I said, breathe a little bit more life in images, reinforcing mood and story.
This is something that I would love to study and research for my graduation project. It's probably not entirely necessary but it will certainly give the whole project a visual boost.

I'm still reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, that book defenitely gave me some great angles and ideas for further research. More on that in the next post.