Sad to say, when I first saw them images, while there was a small part of me that hoped it was real, I was pretty much always on the boat that it was an elaborate hoax, and this was from some things I noticed in the 'render' as well as some things that stood out to me about the 'leak' that seemed illogical.
First off the problems I had with the render, of course pretty much everyone noticed Rayman apparently had an eyebrow transplant from Alistair Darling, that's what first tipped me off, second, and these following two might just be me being a cynical dummy, but for one thing Rayman's iris' not only appear to be both on the same eyeball (which I am aware if this was real was probably just a style choice anyway) but are actually tinted orange instead of dark blue or even black.
Also, again, this might just be me, the shading on the image shows some slight inconsistency, namely on the left hand in comparison to the right, The shading on the left had appears more flat and bold whereas on the right its more soft and rounded, which pretty much made me think that either I really don't know how lighting works, which could be entirely possible, or that this had to be a 2D image made to look like a 3D Render, and on that front, barring the lighting that as I said I could be completely wrong about, I think this does a great job, I could totally see why so many people were fooled by this, it's kind of diabolical on the creators part but kudos to him for creating such a great piece of art.
Though that leads me onto the logic errors I noticed, though there are really only two, one, looking at the hair in particular, it appears more shaggy and layered than the trophy, if this was a 3D model, then it would have to be a completely different one used from both versions that we saw of the trophy and I question the logic of creating yet another model with yet another set of textures when the one used in the finalized trophy is serviceable enough, especially for a character that let's face the facts, about 80% of the absolutely monumental smash fandom would never have played any of his games, if they'd even heard of the series at all at least before the trophy reveal.
Also another logical error I noticed, that again could just be me, not that I see why it matters now seeing as it's been proven fake anyway, is that why we only got screens of that one render. I was not on the hype train for smash 4, I was gonna buy it sure, but when I heard about leaked characters, a lot of the time there was usually game play screens to go with them and the only one that immediately comes to mind were those final leaks of Duck hunt Dog, Shulk, and whoever else was there I forget.
Frankly I think this should just be seen as a tribute to Rayman rather than something with true malicious intent to hurt the fans or the two franchises themselves, the guy who made the leak is either a really dedicated practical joker or a guy who respects the franchise and wanted to create a what if scenario, hell maybe even try and help raise awareness to Nintendo that fans do want Rayman in smash bros. and on that front, I think he kinda succeeded. the outcry for this was massive, absolutely monumental, and Nintendo has to have noticed, wether they'll do anything now is completely up to them though.
I can understand if you're disappointed, as I said there was a part of me that hoped it was real, and I was disapointed too, I was just not getting my hopes up because it nevers ends well, though I don't think the reveal of this being fake is anything to lose sleep over, and certainly not anything to start showing signs of going into the stages of grief over either.
