I am proud to say, that the principal animation for scene 1 of Ara’s Tale is finished.
I redid shot 2 and animated shot 1 (only the dancing lights) which will act as backdrop for the title before leading into the movie.
And to celebrate a little I have done again a very basic cloth simulation and put all the shots together, which now results in the most complete animation of Ara’s Tale so far 
There might be still some polishing, but overall this scene is finished. So, these 5 shots took me 54 hrs in total to animate, done over the course of 14 days. It will be interesting to see how long I will have to work for the other 38 shots. Just doing simple arithmetic leads me to another 410 hrs of animation over 110 days. If I want to keep my internal deadline of october 2010 this will be quite a challenge.
I have now learned enough to appreciate that some of the shots ahead will be very demanding, while other should turn be relatively easy. A big unknown will be the dragon, but that will be done in the end.
Anyway here is scene 1
The skirt looks amazing in some frames, but imperfect in others, ie where the leg pokes through.
I am not sure how noticeable this is though, to non animators!
You are right, but the skirt right now is only a placeholder for the real cloth simulation which starts once the animation is finished. I will also revise the modeling of the skirt itself once I start seriously working on the cloth simulation.
Well it is pretty amazing for a placeholder!
Brilliant. Cant wait to see how this shapes up.