good comments about holds, wolf. Actually, you are being mild.. what I have come to realize is this: there is a 'grammar' or syntax in animation. Certainly it comes from the early days when we had no computers to so preciesly interpolate infinite smoothness between keyframes. The film-goer accepts the holds, and as you point out EXPECTS the holds. "Oh this is an animation. I accept it will be transition/hold/transition/hold and that is fine, my imagination will fill in the rest." I engaged disregard for that in this example. The result is as exactly pointed out by the two of you...over-smooth and unreal. I went against the grammar. I think in real life, with humans, even in a very quiet moment...there is constant movement. But when one is listening or just still but breathing, the movement is so subtle it 'might as well be a perfect hold' and the absolute holds in animation echo those nearly-still human moments. I think I was so leary of the rock solid stone faced dead Lin syndrome, that I over did it when I moved from constant/linear into spline here and there. Next animation I am going to stay in constant/linear a lot longer and see if my sensibility can 'take it.' I will very gradually move the transitions out, but leave the holds in. It will look like bad TV animation at first, but I'll fight my tendancy to overcompensate for that! And you are right about the hair, it was a somewhat inappropriate tool for the situation. It's just...I saw that hair and got cocky, "I can animate that!" Thanks for your well-exampled comments. ::::: Opera :::::