Animation and problems so far.

Over the last couple of days, I have been working on the animation. I have found this particularly hard due to the lack of exposure I have had to animation. I feel confidant now at modelling, but do find the animation aspect far more difficult, and especially more time consuming.
Below shows what I have managed to create so far. There are some areas that I need to improve as they are a little bit ropey, and I have found that some of the shirt mesh does not look quite as I would like it to look. Either way, I am happy with the work that I have produced and am hoping to continue this animation over the coming weeks.



There are several areas that I am not happy with inside of my animation. Firstly, the mesh pulls when the arm is rotated. This is caused due to the fact that I am using 3Ds Max 9. If I were using 10, there are features that allow me to rotate the arm without the mesh being pulled. However, where the arms crease, this sometimes looks quite natural which can be used to my advantage. Secondly, the body becomes thinner when the character moves forward. Again, this is because 9 is not cabable of moving the bones without the mesh being pulled in an unusual way. When the character picks up the cards, it looks a little robotic. I have spent several hours trying to change this and make them smoother, but it is almost impossible without making the cards dissappear into the table top when they are picked up. I am, however, very pleased with the way that the character pushes the glasses up his nose and also the way that he takes them off.