The search for an animator + Striders in a cave!

I've begun searching for a 2-D animator to help ease my workload over the summer. While I still will be designing and illustrating all of the character models, the sheer amount of time required for the animations may be far too much for me to get the game finished in a timely manner. I'm just rolling the idea around in my brain at the moment, but it would certainly be nice to be able to focus on level design, basic sprites, story design, and programming while getting a boost on the extremely time-consuming animation side of things. We'll see how it goes!

In the meantime, here are some Striders trapped in a cave! They've been beaten down by the Stonefangs and pushed into this cave, where they're about to get attacked in a final push. Good thing Captain Moore showed up... or is it?

Where do I put the saddle?