For my next animation for the Azri cycle, I had to complete a body mechanic movement. To begin, the Azri rig came with a sword that could be moved about, this had me thinking of a body mechanic movement that involved the attached sword. I wanted my Azri character to show her picking up the sword, I wanted her to bend using her knees and to show her picking up her sword.
Research
To begin, I did some research on some videos of characters picking up objects, I wanted to look at different hand movement and how the elbow bends and how the body moves, this is all aspects I needed to consider before I went into Maya to complete my own animation. Firstly I research on youtube to see if I could find any helpful videos on characters picking up an object and found a few clips that I will use for inspiration.
Here are a few videos I found to help me with my own animation, I looked at the fingers bent when in contact with the object, this is something I need to apply to my own Azri character when she is picking up her sword.
To further my research, I began researching some character reference images that I can use for my animation, I struggled to find some videos that displayed this particular movement however I found some images that I found useful in terms of knee joint movement and where weight should attributed in the body when kneeling down and picking an object up off the floor. 
Friend reference video
I struggled to find reference images or videos for this movement, so to further my research I asked a friend to complete the movement for me so I could use it to my advantage to slow down the video and to look at the particular joint movements needed for my animation. I had asked my friend Gareth to kneel down and pick something up, this helped me drastically with my azri rig as I was able to point out the key poses to copy over and apply to the rig.
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Ipad sketch
I also created a very quick animation using my Ipad to draw out the key poses to see how well they would animate, I wanted to practice on how much I would need to move her body as along side the arm movement. This sketch gave me a good insight on how my final animation would turn on and how the movement would run.
Draft 1 – Peer feedback
when receiving feedback from my peers when I completed the first draft of my animation they had informed how it would be better to have the characters head moved so she was looking at the sword, they informed me it was a bit unnatural to have her facing forward when picking something up, I agreed on the feedback my first attempt of this animation looked unnatural and it appeared slight too robotic for my liking, they also told me to try lowering her arm a it again looked too unnatural and it was a normal hand placement when picking up an object. To apply their feedback to my animation, I ensured I rotated the characters head so she was actually looking at the sword when picking it up and to lower her arm to make the cycle appear more realistic as opposed to being robotic.
Here I wanted to show the close up of how I used the fingers to give the look of grabbing the handle of the sword.
I have attached some screenshots of the key poses I did in my Azri body mechanic animation, I found this cycle quite difficult as it was more detailed as opposed to a walk cycle, I had to ensure that i had all the fingers bending in to look like the character was actually grabbing the sword. I am quite happy with how my final animation turned out, its definitely something I plan on practicing to help with weight distribution and how the body moves in different poses. I also want to practice with how hair moves and facial features to give the rig a more life like feel as opposed to being so robotic, this is all key factor I will consider as I complete more animations.
Final reflection
Overall, I really enjoyed this task I enjoyed learning about different things I could use within Maya such as the constrain tool to attach the sword to the characters hand to look like she is lifting the object and this is something I will be using with future animations, I found this movement enjoyable as it was different from a walk or run cycle and it allowed me to use the character in a different sense and allowed me to move the head and body more.
However, I feel like I need more practice on giving the character more realistic body weight movements, I struggled with making the sword look heavy and in my animation the azri rig lifted the sword like it was weightless, even with feedback I did struggle with this, in future this is something I will need work on and do some more research on. Finally, I enjoyed this task and will be trying this animation again to reflect on any improvements.