How to do pose to pose animation for a seasoned sfm user

[Frog]

Hey so i logged about 500ish hours in sfm and ive made some decent art and i want to go to the next level with animation.
i've seen the videos but am having issues with animation such as planning...uh where the character is going to move after i spent 4 hours moving said characters finger.
what should i do first before doing fine detail things?
like should i plan the characters route first and add that and then add leg movements and such after? or the other way around?
and what should i use? Graph editor or the motion editor?

[Capt Fuzzy]

The 'planning' part is typically what's called storyboarding. To get to this point, you kinda have to have an idea of what the video is gonna be about, or the story that you are going to try to tell. This is where a script comes in. I know, you're probably thinking, "Script? I'm not Steven Spielberg, I just want to make a video". True, but scripts are written for lots of other things besides movies and tv shows, like commercials, even cartoons have scripts.
Once you have a script, you can then make a storyboard to match. All a storyboard is, is a series of rough illustrations depicting the major events in the script. This is typically never seen by anyone but those who "need to know", which in this case is you... lol, so it doesn't have to be fancy, and you don't have to be a 'Rembrandt' to make a storyboard. Just make sure you understand your own chicken-scratch... lol.
When you actually start the animation process, it's best to "block it in", which basically means, do the major movements and main action first. Dont worry about the fine details at this point, you can take care of those later. Once the main parts have a baseline, you can then go back and add those little details that make it look good.
As far as "which should I use, graph editor or motion editor?" In my experience, I've discovered that you will probably end up using both, depending on the situation and what exactly that you are trying to animate.
For me anyway, I find that the motion editor is great for overall movements, and the graph editor is great for the fine details, but this isn't always the case, so it's best to just get used to using both, that way if one gives you a little bit of trouble, you can always switch to the other and keep on rolling...