The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child

I watched The Gruffalo last Christmas (Christmas 2010) and The Gruffalo's Child this Christmas just gone (2011) and I absolutely love them.

Gruffalo:



Gruffalo's Child:


The sets are beautiful and I love how the characters look in 3D. The animation of the characters feels like stop motion which I think adds so much charm to the piece.
The movement between poses is smooth and natural looking, which is something I really need to work on in my own work. All the movement is paced nicely with no jerks or snaps to poses and the slow in slow out principle has certainly been used.

Also found a 'Making of' video for The Gruffalo:


Watching this makes me want to build sets!
Anyway, watching these films has made me more determined to get the timing right on my animation and focus on making the movements more natural and smooth. I've had some feedback on my first lip sync which has pretty much confirmed that I need to work on polishing the movements, with perhaps a few tweaks here and there. For example, do something more with his eyes at the 'brain fizz' action. I may make them go crosseyed.