It's been a while since I last posted up any of Hemmy's progress due to some rigging and skinning issues with the Pose Deformer plug-in issues I kept coming across. I must have rigged and skinned him about 5 times so far but all the trouble was worth it when I finally saw him moving. I attempted a very rough walk cycle today and I can already see what it is that I have to change on him. I know it's probably very bad but it's my first quadruped animation. I can't wait to look into different animation methods to see what fits best our animated short. So this is what I need to consider after this first test:
-Fix some skinning issues that appear during the walk
- Limit the translates of the leg controls to avoid any weird rotations in the joints
- Replace the basic blendshapes with separate controls for the facial rig.
-Consider any squash and stretch to the face and spine for some comedy.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! A friend's little westie dog joined me and my flatmates during our Christmas holidays and I thought it was a great opportunity for me to observe the dog's behaviour and movements. I've put together a short video starring Snowy with notes on her movements which will be a great help for me when I start animating. It was a nice break from my current skinning.  I will update my progress with Hemmy's rigging and skinning very soon after I complete it.

I also observed how her skeleton bent and deformed in different poses.