Island Geek Explores Creativity: More stick figures; looking for tutorials to optimize Photoshop animation for 2D characters

I made a few more stick figure animations today, shown below. They were fun, and I'll continue to apply my cartoon-drawing dreams to Photoshop as my preferred animation tool until I can find a good reason to take on an animation software (and all its necessary learning) such as Toon Boom. I also have Blender installed for free 3D animation experiments, so I'm not bored yet.

I would like to be able to do rigging, rather than relying on Photoshop's puppet warp tool for doing character movements. Still, I think puppet warp forces me to really pay attention to gestures and biomechanics (both are personal interests in terms of their related sciences and social sciences), so I'll enjoy the experience.

So far I'm relying on 3D animation literature (old textbooks, and software-specific tutorials) to learn the concepts of keyframes and tweening that I'm using for the stick figure animations. Animated logos are so much easier - Photoshop's tools are designed for manipulating those quite nicely. It's just a little harder when your graphic is a character drawn with the paintbrush tool and a Wacom tablet.

With the tools I've got, I think there's no reason my next animation session couldn't include my cat cartoon characters. After a bunch of that drawing practice, I may want to move into a pro animation software and possibly the 3D side too, perhaps starting with Blender (free).

My choices are open to nudging by clients who may need specific animation and video effects that one software or another excels at. Of course, I'm not just drawing for fun. I want to do animated or semi-animated videos for other peoples' promotions, events, or stories.

Tell me what you think of these ones, and any suggestions you have for a logical next software to try out. Keep in mind I can't afford or justify spending $2,000 or more, for professional versions like Toon Boom or Maya.

Version 2 of stick figure: