I've looked at your animations and have taken an interest in your "Full body" work.
I have one question that I may know the answer to, but I'll ask anyway. Do you draw frequently apart from animation? If so, do you "Life Draw"? I ask because as an inspiring illustrator I take "Life Drawing" very seriously. If you don't know what Life drawing is, I'll dedicate this next paragraph to explanation.
Life drawing can be simply described as drawing the environment around you. Could be your cute pet Cat next to you, the neighbor's bike, the old man sitting in the autumn park playing chess by himself, may be a collective of bottles. What ever it is its a great tool to keep your hand sharp and your mind keen to proportions and natural movement. This is very helpful to the animator when it comes time to animate because it make the cartoon believable. You might say in our mind, "Believable? More like unbelievable! Its a cartoon!" Which is true to a point, if you have an animation of an obese man with stumpy legs run with long strides and jump effortlessly over hurdles you would say to yourself "That doesn't make any sense". Though if the fat man didn't run so fast and had trouble jumping (if he can even jump) over the hurdles then it would be believable.
Other than that I can't think of anything else to post. Hope this helps.
Actually, I used to draw very frequently and, since childhood, illustrating has always been a hobby for me. I've taken many art classes in which "life drawing" was the primary focus: model drawing, collections of bottles, environments in nature, etc.
Before experimenting with life drawing, however, most of my drawings were very cartoonish and disproportionate. Usually I would find a cool picture of a cartoon character I liked, such as Goku from Dragonball Z, and I would do my best to re-draw the picture just by looking at it. Once I took some classes and learned more about proportions and perspective, and how to make things look realistic, I found that even my cartoon drawings improved by leaps and bounds. Learning how to draw things as they truly appear in reality also helped me understand how to make my imaginary characters move more naturally. I try to apply this same thought process to my animations now. In the past I would solely animate stickfigures, but as I've aged they have lost their appeal. Much like my illustrations, I've reached the point where my imaginary characters must also be supported by a sense of realism and natural movement.
Nowadays I don't draw nearly as much as I used to, which saddens me because I used to spend every spare moment drawing. I think I'll try to dust off the old sketchbook and change that!
Btw, AKCD, you should post some of your animations (if you have any)! I always love seeing other users try full body animation, and if you animated your avatar then I'd have to guess you are pretty good!
