And for comparison sake, some old material, here is an early bit of animation I did for our group short film while at Capilano. Yes, I see the deformation issues. XD ...I still like our cuddly cyclops.

Yeah, I know. A tutorial - how lame. The project provided the shot setup and animation blocking. I then added breakdowns, overlapping action, overshoots, holds, cushions, blinks, and splining. This was an eye opener; how a good foundation, timing, spacing, etc with attention to animation principles can produce a well polished piece in little time.

Nurbs and Sub-D power - who knew?!

Guess what? I'm trying to model again. Done entirely in Maya. And I didn't pull individual vertices all day.