It's all about the poses

There's a cool progression comparison over @ characterdesign.blogspot. I do have to say though that the Clone Wars pose could just be an inbetween leading to the final pose. And don't forget it's TV, not a feature production. The time that is given to the animators is ridiculously small.

Still, it's a nice reminder to push your poses, to make them as appealing as possible, even during inbetweens. Don't let the computer do the work. If you want quality animation, you have to treat each frame like drawing animation, where each frame is worked on, without automatic inbetweening.

And apart from that, go check out the characterdesign blog for all the other posts, good stuff there.