A 180 / kick assignment:
My first assignment was for this character to make a 180 degree turn around and/or a kick.
You first start with the idea, what would you like to animate? I got to a point that I caught my-self thinking about this assignment too much: "what should he do", "what would be cool", blah,blah and more blah!

So I decided to just go with it and film myself playing with a small soccer ball. I really wanted the animation to feel natural, and not 'acted out'. SO I went ahead and played with the ball infront of the camera. I hurt my ankle during the process, as you will see I fall... NOTE TO ALL ANIMATORS: You have to feel comfortable making a fool of your-self!

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?"
After I recorded my-self I went ahead and took a real good look at the shot that I chose. For this reference, I was really looking at the poses and timing. You look for the poses that really make this action possible. I paid a very close attention on my feet: what they were doing in contrast to the body, when they were leaving and making contact with the floor, etc. I then went ahead and drew the main poses out.

BLOCKING
I wanted to concentrate on the poses here. I didn't really want to pay attention to the timing yet. I just wanted to make sure my poses read well, and that the silhouette was clear.



SPLINING
Once I felt comfortable with my blocking plus, I then made some last minute tweaks to the timing. Making sure the timing felt right.


TUNNING IT UP!
After I had splined it, I had lost some of the variations of rhythm that my blocking had. I lost the texture and the rhythm. So I went back and changed some of my spacing around.