Character animation crash course

ATTITUDE POSES
When approaching a scene, make a series of drawings that "tell the story" of the
scene (how the character feels, where he's going, what occurs physically in the plot,
the character's attitudes throughout) in order of their appearance in the scene. Don't
even worry about timing at this stage; just make the drawings communicate. In the
case of television or commercial productions, these will often be the drawings you
would get from the director as pose/layout drawings (an extension of the way Golden
Age shorts directors worked). Whether they are provided for you, or you create them
yourself, these storytelling drawings aren't necessarily the most extreme drawings in
the scene. Rather, they are the ones most comfortable for the eye to settle on (while
still retaining strength and directness in drawing). These drawings can be telegraphed
strongly for more extreme, stylized action (Chuck Jones' Dover Boys, or your average
Avery cartoon) or animated into and out of more subtly for feature-style animation
(which covers the poses with more secondary actions, overlap, limbs on different
timings, etc. Milt Kahl was a firm advocate of storytelling drawings).
I sometimes call this the "Name That Tune" school of animating. For those of you
not ancient enough to remember this TV game show, contestants competed to name
the title of a song in the fewest number of notes. ("I can name that tune in three
notes, Bill.") If you can "name that scene" in the fewest number of drawings, your
scene will convey a great deal of clarity to the viewer.