Here's the neatened up run cycle with all the details added and the tail animated. The tail was rather tricky to move convincingly using the four drawing formula, since I needed it to flick up and down with the bobbing of the body, but at the same time if couldn't flick too fast otherwise it would just be a blur. In the end I managed to find a decent compromise, and I think it works quite well. I used and example of a cat run cycle as a reference for the tail positions, again from the Animator's Survival Kit.
On a separate note, even now that I've tidied up the line art significantly, I'm still really liking the slightly rough, pencilly feeling it has, as though the drawing of my cat has suddenly come to life and started moving on its own. I think that if I digitalised it fully by tracing over the frames in Flash, the sharp vector line would ruin this illusion... And while someone could easily argue that a character quickly doodled straight onto flash could also come alive and move on its own, I think it would be harder to believe because of how clean and crisp all the lines would be... I think its that "still a work in progress", sketchy feel that really brings it across, or at least that's how I feel personally. I'm also enjoying how the paper is flickering in the background as my character runs, almost as if the cat's movement across the paper is causing the paper to move as well. It may be an accidental side effect of scanning in each frame, but I think it looks brilliant while the clip is playing and it would almost be a shame to get rid of it... The background may just be blank paper, but because you can tell it is actually paper rather than just a devoid white space, it doesn't feel so empty.
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