Help with Animation?

[Sophistique]

Hi Guys,

So I've come a long way from learning to pixel and shade the elephant characters I've been working on (which I owe to all the help on the forums - thank you so much!)

Now I'm moving onto learning to animate a few of these characters.

This was my first animation attempt, the sitting guy getting scared by something (I've put it on 'repeat' so you can see the animation, he'll normally be sitting, then go "ZOMGWHATTHEHECKISTHAT!?" part of the animation and then left with the last two frames of him shaking) - please still critique him as I think the shaking has left a little to be desired for...



And I'm now working on this guy - a happy elephant bobbing his head up and down. I tried to get some body movement in there as well, but it seems very stiff.



I have left the canvas larger than it would be as he is still very much a WIP. Any and all help is always greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[zinnfandel]

Hello. Cool stuff

The scared animation is pretty sweet. I especially like the hair. But the spacing in the back-and-forth motion at the end are identical. Try one large movement back, one small forward, a medium one back again and a tiny one forward. That's one idea anyway.
I would remove the extra highlight on the back and hips, it kinda looks like he's spotted...
For the happy elephant, you have both the head and tail animating at equal amounts. I suggest to tone it down on the tail, have it move a lot less. Also the whole body seems a bit like it's leaning back and might fall.
Also here on the head you need varied spacing. So have the frames closer together when the direction is about to change. That would give more weight to his trunk.

[YellowLime]

The shaking animation is not very good, since (as zinnfandel said) both frames are "identical", meaning the whole body just jitters statically.

The main problem I see with it is that the lower part of the body should remain static, and only the upper part should be moving somewhat. As it is now, it looks like it's defying one or two rules of physics (mainly gravity)