my first workflow tip... keeping the "feel" of your blocking

Ok fist off... after animating professionally for only 4 months i feel not the slightest qualified to teach others how to animate, but on one of my last acting shots i did in my spare time, i started doing something i never have heard from mentors or someone else, and id like to share this because to me it works pretty well.

Im talking about that well known moment when you come out of blocking in stepped and turn your awesome looking piece of animation into spline (or in my case plateau).

Suddenly everything looks funky, floaty and completely terrible... i used to go back and set more breakdowns but i dont think thats very efficient. Dont get me wrong, i dont get out of blocking without the feeling i have set enough keys to define all my transitions and all the key movements, wich is usually when i have a key on every 4th - 5th frame.

But then it still looks terrible sometimes. So what i did on my last shot was simply, keep a playblast of my awesome looking blocking and have it open during my first few passes of splining. And constantly go over it an check if my animation still feels the same as my blocking. I found this extremely helpful and it was one of these moments where i wondered why i hadnt done this earlier.

I dont know if everyone else does this but no one thinks its worth mentioning but i find this a nice little trick to hold on to if you feel lost when your splines go crazy :-)

Cheers
Luke