Get Out - Even more splining!

Today was my first day to upload my Get Out assignment for Animation Mentor so I spent the entire week improving the the shot for its debut. Sadly, for the non-animators this is the part of the process where the changes are less visible, and the polish process can be one of the longest steps in the animation cycle. But it is also the one which separates the good animators from the best animators. That extra 10% you focus on adding to the hands/eyes/elbows etc may not be noticed consciously, but it is felt. Here is the new shot:



Here is the previous version. While it may not look like a lot of changes, it took more time to go from this update that it did the previous one...



Did you see the differences? Here's some hints:
In the new shot, the hands/fingers are no longer frozen bricks that move with the wrist, they now flow, overlap and have stronger arcs.
Toned down the breathing overlap in hands after "Why me?"
Arms now anticipate the larger movements instead of just flying to the next pose
I accented the lip sync in a lot of words ("camel" and the"why me"s were too reserved).
Eye lids now squint in the more serious sections of the piece
Eyebrows flow more and move less on areas they were too distracting
Pupils dilate and contract in emotional sections
Blink and Eye darts when character is confused
Final poses slows down and settles instead of just stopping
The pause before "Get..." is now longer

And these are just a few... The next few weeks of polish are going to a lot of fun!