http://www.expression.edu/~npolenske/animationshttp://www.expression.edu/~npolenske/animations
Okay, these are variable animations I have done during my time at school. The important ones I’d like to know about are the ones involving the spindly character and the kid together in the forest, but anything you have to say about the others would be appreciated as well.
Your stuff isn’t bad. It does need tightening up in a few areas.
First, loosen up Charlie a little. He tends to have his back and neck ramrod-straight most of the time… give him a little more play in the spine, especially when he’s engaged in dynamic behaviours like getting ready to jump over the waterfall.
Second, pay attention to where your characters’ limbs interact with the environment. In the scene where the dryad leaps onscreen and then from tree to tree, his hands and feet never have solid contact with anything: he drifts and slips all over the place.
The physics in your animations isn’t as realistic as I think it needs to be. Do some careful study and analysis of how objects bounce, fly through the air, land, etc. When the dryad jumps from tree to tree, he’s moving much too slowly for it to be believable. To make a jump like that, a character has to really hurl himself forward. Remember, everything behaves the same in flight, whether it’s a basketball or a dryad. Imagine how quickly, hard, and high you’d have to throw a basketball from that first tree in order to hit the second. Your dryad should follow the same trajectory.
On that note… in the scene where Charlie slams into the brick wall, it’s very unbelievable to have the bricks slowly slide back after the impact. Huge chunks of stone like that would move during the impact, and then stop immediately–they wouldn’t continue to slide after Charlie had fallen off.
Finally, check your timing–it feels a little slow to me. Depending on how you’re pacing your story, we really might not need to see Charlie take six slow steps down the path before the dryad makes his appearance. Don’t be afraid to put real zip and snap into your CG animation, just the same way you’d put it into your classical stuff. In my opinion, a lot of CG falls prey to moving too slowly: because the artists don’t have to draw every frame by hand anymore, they lose the sense of efficiency and economy that classical animation forces on them. 
Of course, timing issues really can only be checked when the scenes are edited together; I’m just flagging something that I think might become an issue for you.
Despite all these criticisms, I really think the work is good. As I said, it just needs to be tightened up to really make it come alive.
Good luck.
-Steve
Actually I’ve only slightly touched on hand drawn animation, which is what I actually wanted to become, so I’m going into this raw. Anway…
Charlie has proven to be a very difficult character to deal with. He’s supposed to be a rather easy going but very bright person which is hard for me to communicate w/o him acting like a dim bulb. But he’s purposely slow in his movements.
I agree with the rest, but I prolly won’t be able to tackle all of them with as little time as I have, which blows goats. 
Anyway, I found an old animation I did a year back. It’s my first lip synch. Enjoy.
http://www.expression.edu/~npolenske/animations/charlieLipSynch.wmvhttp://www.expression.edu/~npolenske/anima…lieLipSynch.wmv
A nice start on that lip sync–especially for someone with no classical animation training.
In terms of trying to convey Charlie’s character of easygoing but bright… Try a more relaxed walk, really play with his posture. Such a skinny character could be really slouching and swoopy in his lines if you let him. Swing his arms… or thrust his hands deep in his pockets… or have him swing or dangle a prop as he walks. ‘Brightness’ can be conveyed by quicker, alert head movements, for example. And so on and so on…
Act out ‘Charlie’ in front of a mirror… see what feels right. Check out similar characters in movies and television… what about Bogart in the wonderful film Iron Giant?
Anyway good work, thanks for sharing.
-Steve
You seem to be developing your skills well enough. However, I think working with a fully rigged character is holding you back right now. Try working with just blocks on skeletons. This speeds up the process for rendering frames and checking them in a flip book. When you can get blocks to act, then you are that much closer to getting a real character to do so.
Hope this helps,
Urp