It's how I basicly do all my sprites so I'll have to agree there, the 2nd sprite usually is harder since you'll have to change stuff yourself and it just doesn't look as good as the original (when I do it at least)
The only thing is that bones for you skeletal raptor (small fragile stuff) might get mashed when you need a relative small sprite and resize the image (size 3 I'm guessing so about 64x64 would be the size to use but probably the creature would have to be a bit smaller).
Anyway I'd really try it that way, if you don't succeed I would be willing to try and steal on of the net for you
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