Animation is dangerous

So my end-of-term holiday has begun...but I still want to animate.

I think I've grown oddly addicted. On my first day back home I went straight to my laptop and down loaded Maya. (And if you were wandering, no this wasn't an illegal down load-its just a thirty day trial.) Anyway I then proceeded to create an account on creativecrash.com and immediately set about searching for some interesting rigs.
That was when I discovered Nico, some awesome quadruped dude who I just had to have a crack at. His rigging was wonderfully intuitive but really complex. Take a look.

Sooo may lines! Scary huh?

I spent many hours on this guy. Last night I didn't stop until half one in the morning and today I forgot to eat. Animation is dangerous see? Only one with a will of titanium, a will so strong that they can tear themselves away from the screen or paper and pencil to go and grab a bite to eat should take on such a mighty task.

My will goes the other way. Meh. I don't care. It's fun.

Anyway I really enjoyed animating Nico. (I nic-named him Nicky.) Take a gander.

Nicky

I was able to practicece a quadruped walk and I know I've made some improvements since the monkey. This time there is a sense of weight in the feet and the corresponding fore limbs and hind limbs don't rise and lower at the same time. I noticed I made that mistake with the monkey. I'm not so happy with the little twirl at the end. I think perhaps it is a little ridged and not tight enough to convey his little burst of excitement...if you can identify that.
I learnt a couple of things while animating this little dude. The first would be that in order to make wider strides I should lower the body closer to the ground as this creates more flexibility in the knees. The other thing would be that imaginary creatures are great to animate because they are not taken from true life. You are not restricted by the limitations of a real life version of that creature and you are not forced to  mimic any idiosyncrasies that creature might have.

Well that's Nicky. I will be doing him again some time but right now there is an elephant rig that has caught my eye...

Oh and the blog lies. It never get the correct time of posting.