Long Over Due update

I am still alive and I know I said I was going to post more regularly and that is just bad form on my part to be honest. But I was holding off posting anything because I really wanted my next update to show off something but it's taking far to long for that so instead I thought I show you some minor project I'm working on.

Animating in After Effects
So I wanted to try something different from traditional animation and I decided to play around with a rigging like system and I thought I'd use After-effects because I already have experience with the software.
Using my one my old character I updated the design and did a simple looping animation,
(On the left is the old character design and on the right is new one which I'm currently on test 3.)

Dialogue Exchange, pirates playing poker

The second idea I'm working on is four characters having a poker game. Using an audio clip from an episode of Batman the animated series I've designed 3 characters and redesigned one of my friends characters to play seen somewhat differently to what the episode did.

Below are the final designs of the characters (apart from Stan the Shark) and a video clip of the ruff keys I've done so far

Lastly I was going to do a Star Wars inspired action scene but from taking so long to getting the LAVs and loss of interest I just decided to drop the idea.
But below are some of the final concepts for the characters and a ruffed out beginning of the animation which is really only an hour or two work.