After effects Character animation..

Great post over at Pro Video Coalition containing a bunch of video tutorials proving that after effects is not a post-production only tool but can be the tool of choice for full animation production. check it out.. http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/ryoung/story/animate_a_character_in_after_effects/

Basic Head rotations using 3D Layers, Distortion Mesh & Expressions in After Effects from Daniel Gies on Vimeo.

Free Character Rigs

Some free Rigs to practice character animation...

MAYA...
http://bit.ly/mayarig01
http://bit.ly/mayarig02
http://bit.ly/mayarig03
http://bit.ly/mayarig04

3D STUDIO MAX...
http://bit.ly/maxrig01
http://bit.ly/maxrig02
http://bit.ly/maxrig03

paper to digital animation workflow

Here's a post from a guy on animation forum (.net) about his workflow for getting his paper animation digitized and coloured start to finish. He skips over a few steps taking certain things for granted but It's broken down quite well.
http://www.animationforum.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7463