LO1/2: While the lyinda tutorial helps with the main limbs I need a quick way to animate the face feathers and the tail feathers. I have decided the best way to do this is with attributes added to the controlled. As an animator i find it easier to animate with attributes then sliders- they just confuse me.
The screen grabs below shot how effective the added attributes to a controller. Form one controller i can make the trail rotate side to side, fed the feathers up and down, open and close the feathers and roll the tail up and down. For the face feathers they only needed a simple back and forth movement to be used for a bounce and follow through as well as shocked expressions.