Character Animation 2: Pantomime Final Project

For the past two weeks, we have been learning how to make a character change from one emotion to another one through a series of body movements and facial expressions. Earlier this month, I posted up the "block out" version of this final project. From there, I added in anticipations, breakdowns, moving holds, and made adjustments in the graph editor to create a smooth flowing animation.

My characters emotions change from sad/deeply depressed, to exhilarated and very excited.
I used a parent constraint on the hand control and the piece of mail that the character grabs out of the box, and just keyed it on when it was needed. I hope you enjoy it!

Below, I have added in the Pre Pro work that I created before taking on this project and making it into a 3D Animation. These drawings helped me understand how the line of action needed to look, how to pose the character, the composition of the project, the breakdowns and what poses I needed to do in order to create the correct emotion at the correct time. 

What I learned about making pre pro for each project is that reference is key to a strong project. From reference, you can see how the body moves realistically. From that reference, you can draw out key poses, breakdown poses, and exploratory poses that could be possibilities for the project at hand. Without reference, a project will be lacking significantly.