Blocking out the Key Poses of Storyboard

Key poses

Establishing shot representing the character's goal

First reaction to present 

The camera angle has been improved compared to the storyboard. This staging perspective allows the audience to see more what he is doing.

The thought process allows the audience to get to know the character, how he thinks about certain events. He is thinking "It is not my birthday". The pose and timing could be improved to show this.

Here shown is an exaggerated curious take using squash and stretch to add a more cartoony effect.

The change of camera allows to see the face of the character more clearly on a front perspective. This allows staging of facial expressions. Showing the eyes and face allows more use of emotions.

This perspective is to represent how big the present is compared to the deer. It also represents the character's curiosity growing and building anticipation. The pose of the character cuts into the next scene where he is instantaneously positioned in front of the present. 

The next view cuts the timing using a scene cut. This slightly upsets the pacing and will have to be staged carefully using the camera and character. 

This scene shows him touching the present in excitement. He will either pick it up and shake it in excitement and curiosity or he will just grab to feel it is there, lean back in anticipation then pounce. 

Here he is ripping open the box paper will fly every where mostly to the left.

Here he shows a face of intrigue that slowly deflates into sad. The excitement and expectancy of the gift is clashed with shock and disappointment 

Blocking out the animation

Blocking out the animation had it's challenges however the rig was so well built and skinned that it made the workload more efficient. Some of the poses are still rough however the key was to establish the scenes of the whole animation.

To make animation more efficient I use a custom Mel script called Pose library. The tool allows me to store poses and animations that I can project onto the character

Here are many poses that I used in the animation