Animation - ruins

I started animation with the ruins scene. First I blocked out the poses of walk cycle. The main poses were already there as I used them to create the storyboard and the animatic. The walk was quite challenging as I have never animated any four legged creatures before. But by observing animals I figured out how they move their limbs and animation process was quite straight forward. I also made a head turn to show that thy fly has noticed something. Here is a playblast:

Then, I made the fly to turn around looking for something. This was even more challenging because I made it crouch on six legs. However, it wasn't a walk cycle anymore and I could play with different approaches. Here is a playblast of my best result:

After that I animated fly walking towards the bucket and punching it. The walk was all right. I used exactly the same technique as in the beginning. The punch in the animatic, in my opinion, was to exaggerated, so I made it more subtle. However, I didn't like the outcome. I also animated background visibility. Once the fly punched the bucket it disappears, because when the background breaks I don't want any shadows.

I didn't like the punch, so I went to speak with my tutor and he advised that the punch is not necessary at all and doesn't even fit with the character. He suggested to try something else. So I made thy fly sit on the bucket instead. And it worked much better.

Lastly, I animated the fly flying away. The flight isn't smooth as I wanted to make it fill dizzy and panicked. Thy fly goes off the screen, so the background and lighting can change and I won't have any issues with the character.