Aim
Explore the whistling movement
Method
After following the reference, come up with different variations of cheek and mouth movement
Result
I create five different versions of whistling.
A: Head squashing down with music notes coming for the mouth
B: Exaggaration for breathing
C: Exaggaration for cheeks movement
D: C with head moving left and right
E: C with head moving up and down
Discussion
Mickey Mouse whistle while shaking his body. Only when breathing, his head moves up to get more air. The mouth is still while the cheeks are moving. The cheeks are round as balloons beac use of the air inside his mouth.
In the first version of animation, as the feedback given by Nick, the cheeks could have more movement. I looked for some inspirations and remember that the classic whistling animation from Disney, the Mickey Mouse whistling on a boat.
After trying the same motion of Mickey Mouse, I came up with some variations of my own. My main focus is head because it is the place for whistling. When the body is still, there should be more movement for other body parts.
For test A and B, there are exaggaration on the bouncy aspect of head. For the test B it feels like the character is eating. And test C is mouth moving with cheeks. Test C works well but I feel something still missing. As further develop test C to D and E, one is shaking head left and right, another one is knodding up and down. As a result, test E works really well because the up and down movement enhance the cheek blowing action.