Here's an update regarding Celes... Tried out Stewer's idea for parenting everything to a cube.

Also, I found out something useful... You can conform clothing as usual, then Parent the items to your character, and then use the Z-toon way. So, Celes can now defeat whatever hordes get thrown at her in full 3d motion and look good doing it :) The only thing that remains is how to get camera movement involved, but I am NO where near even thinking about that, I'm still figuring out keyframes when it comes to animation.

The link is to a quickie gif and applied BVH. It runs SLOOOOW, I didn't bother fiddling with it, so be prepared for molasses. But, it shows the power of Z-tooning :) And I think I like her without added shadows, puts me in mind of Disney's Sleeping Beauty style.
Celes Sword-swinging http://lhiannan.tripod.com/aikovalk.gif.