Ok, I'm working on a game with armor and such (all 2D) and the way I'm implementing it is when drawing players, each piece of armor that is equipped is drawn separately, and which picture to use for each piece is found based on whether the character is running, standing, attacking, which direction they are facing and so forth.  So this requires a lot of art work for each individual item added to the game, I've drawn out a lot of the still images for use to be seen in inventory and such, but the animation work is quite involved.  I'm wondering if there's any programs that make it easier to animate this type of thing without having to draw each frame from scratch (as I am currently doing).  I'm estimating that each item will need around 60-80 images total, maybe more.  Is there a good program I should know about or is there a better way of implementing this?  Let me know if you have any suggestions!