I have found the Inverse Kinematic handles to be counterproductive for this specific model as they stop me from moving the tentacles any way other than how the IK handle is set up. This meant I couldn’t move any joints inside the IK handle without completely screwing up the tentacle. So I removed them and have had to key frame each joint individually.
I made a plan for what I wanted to happen in ~15 seconds for the animation.
I was able to animate the entire sequence by keyframing the most important parts first to give me a solid base to then keyframe everything else around them. I didn’t end up adding blend shapes or blinking eyelids, so you do have a wide-eyed squid staring you down. The eyes don’t move separate from the head either in the animation, which Icompletely forgot about until now. Altogether the animation is 460 frames at 24 fps, making it just over 19 seconds long, which ain’t too bad.
Keyframing without the Inverse Kinematic handles wasn’t actually that bad once I got the hang of keyframing. Just getting the first 3 seconds done probably took me longer than the last 16 seconds due to trying to figure out how to get it all to work how I wanted. However, I think I actually did a pretty good job keyframing. I particularly like watching Mr Squid tilt and scratch his head, purely because that is the first part that I thought I did a really good job at animating.
Below is the animation.