Day 10 - starting on head swivels

What I did today:
Today I started on the head animations, I started with just the side to side movements. I decided to try a different way to work on keyframing. Instead of doing all the keyframes and then doing a lot of fine-tuning I will be doing as much as I can in one section and then move on to the next section, and then if I notice later on something that I feel like needs to be changed or added it will be less work for me then. My total starting frames is 150, but I may change it as I go on.

I started off by using the neck 'line bone' to move the head

The neck is the main point the controls the heads movement so using this bone is the best method to move the head how I want it.

I first got a keyframe of just the neck at the start of the animation with it in a neutral forward position.

I then rotated the head on the y-axis by pressing R and then Y. I rotated the head slightly but not completely to the side as I don't want the animation to look forced. I keyframed it on frame 25.

I did the same thing on frame 50 but rotated the head the opposite way.

After testing out the animation it felt too fast so I decided to increase the total frame count from 150 to 300 and move the frames over so that frame 25 is now on frame 50 and frame 50 is now on frame 100. Doing this slowed the animation down to the point where it was still fast enough to look normal but also not too slow to the point where the animation looks like it's in slow motion. 

I then pressed Shift+D on the first keyframe on frame 0 and duplicated that frame to frame 150. This gives the animation a good stopping point from the side to side and a good transition point to the next section of the head going up diagonally.

This is the animation with the first section done, the framerate of the recording is a bit less because of my laptop's capabilities. The first section so far had come together pretty well.

What I'm doing tomorrow:

Tomorrow I will be working on the next section which will be a bit harder putting the head in a diagonal position because of the rotations needed. I'll try out different positions with the x and y-axis until I get the position I like.