Dance Thumbnails

I've been studying a lot of dances recently for additional game animations. Here are some thumbnails I drew while trying to figure one of the dances out.

Thumbnails and rig testing for upcoming animation

more planning and character ideas

more planning for the dialogue test. I think I'm gonna go with an angry Joe Pesci audio clip.

some planning

I'm working on doing a scene with dialogue. Here are some sketches to try and map and where I'm going. I haven't committed to anything yet, but it's helpful for me to see it all together to see all of the possibilities. I think this will be 2D ultimately, so there are also some ideas for the characters.

STU poses

Here is STU, the official intro character of AM. Once we got a strong pose in our drawings, we would pose the 3D character STU. Here are some of my favorites. The planning drawings I discussed earlier here.

Planning, planning!

One thing they drill into your head at AM, is that planning is one of the most important steps when animating. This is quite brilliant and also pretty obvious, but it has made a big difference for me in the final product. When you have a clear picture of where you are going, it makes the process much more enjoyable. You don't second guess every decision you make along the way. I try to plan until I have something on paper that I would like to see, then when I get into the computer I have a bar set to at least what I captured in my drawing, and I don't call it quits until I at least capture what was happening in the drawing. So while I'm animating, I can really focus on the overall performance. That's my goal, at least.

Here are some planning thumbnails of poses expressing: concern, excitement, strength, and a few others. Details aren't important. Gesture, attitude, line of action and silhouette are the focus. Any additional thoughts?