AM Week 003: Bouncing Ball + Excitement Pose

We finally began animating during Week 3 at Animation Mentor! This is what we've all been waiting for ladies and gents! A bouncing basketball may look simple, but I guarantee you that it's not easy to animate. Maya's graph editor made the task extra difficult for me at first, but since then it and I have become BFF and I vow to never curse at it again.

Aside from our bouncing ball animation, we had to pose Stu (our AM character/rig) to show him in a state of excitement. Again, not another easy task. I usually associate excitement with facial expressions, and poor Stu does not have a face. So my classmates and I had to rely on body language alone in conveying his excitement. Here's what I came up with for both assignments, after much revision and advice from my awesome fellow classmates...