Firstly, great work! I love the design and the detail.
Secondly, I'm no great animator. Hopefully, another pair of eyes on it will help you figure out the problems. Don't take me too seriously though.
But yes, I agree with your partner. The "down" animation looks great. It's a purposeful stride with a little sway that helps it feel natural.
The up animation feels like it has lots more sway. Like, loads. My thoughts for the reasons behind this are:
- The hair moves side to side a LOT. My brain also sees a bum wiggle that creates the feeling of this being a dance move. If I cover up the hair then I can see that the skirt really isn't moving much side-to-side, so I feel like the big hair motion is the cause here.
- The arms look like they're moving side-to-side in sync, to me. Because I only see one at once, my brain fills in the gaps. What I'm seeing (possibly emphasised by the hair sway) is each arm extending to near full length on each side in turn. I'm imagining her clicking her fingers at each full extension. Again, maybe because of the hair motion leading my eye, the other arm seems to move across the body at the same time. I imagine it at a similar angle to the visible arm, hidden by her body, also doing a finger click. Jazzy! I'm kinda seeing something like this guy, maybe a little like the character after him as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XtLEp0XAII&t=60I feel like a couple of things might help here. One is toning down that hair sway in the "up" animation. I feel like it's a bit wide and we'd see more of it from the front view if it was that big... And it seems to be at the root of the whole "dancing" issue. It's a shame though, it's a really great sway.
The other is concentrating on showing the backs of the elbows rather than hands in the "up" animation. I feel like we see too much hand, so it makes the arm look almost straight at full extension. Also, if you can keep both arms visible throughout the "up" animation then I wouldn't feel like they were moving sideways across the body.
I'm not sure how easy or effective either of those would be TBH, but I hope there's something in there that helps...