First Animation Specialist Demo Reel

Pyronatic

Hi, all! I just went through my first animation portfolio defence and it went pretty well. I just wanted to see if I can get some extra critiques to push my work further. I plan to replace the last walk cycle with a quadruped walk cycle, as well as add a lip sync, walk to run and creature animation.

KyleG

First shot of guy looking around - feels a bit unpolished - like Maya is doing a lot of the inbetweens. The blinks feels very quick and sort of just dropped in. I would move the blinks more where he has a big head move. 
The hand pose on the chin could use some work - mainly the thumb - something more like this
The finger point up at the end - everything is moving & stopping at the same time - try and break up those motions more

Second shot of Mery - this is essentially the same test as your previous one - a character looking around. I would remove one of these instead of showing essentially the same thing twice.

Walk Cycle - get some side to side shift in the body as well - when one leg is off the ground the body needs to shift its weight over onto the planted foot

Second Walk Cycle - feels like there's some hitches/pops in this cycle. Similar note as above about getting some more weight shift in there

Arturow

Hello Pyronatic

- Smooth the eyes from the first shot unless that's the approach you wanted it looks weird and the geometry cut from the rest of the mesh.
- Also, his chest and shoulders never move, try to connect the different parts of the body to each reaction
- When he looks don't stop him like he hit a wall, try to smooth the entire movement video reference helps a lot!
- With the Mery one, be careful with expresions, there she looks kind of robotic, I would blend the expression while she is turning and not after.
- Here is a video tutorial for eye blinks and blinks for direction. It may help a bit . Instructed by animator Garrett Shikuma https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73jRo4fwU3I&index=9&list=PL57C433114A7BE3DC