I was really struggling with maintaining the body forms during squash and stretch during the exercise and mouse tail length fluctuations ! Steve suggested using an elastic band as a guide method for paper exercises. I also tried to simplify the forms, sketching gestures and shapes using oil pastels on paper was really helpful.
I tried copy and paste of basic shapes but it left the animation feeling “flat/dead” and doesn’t help me long term , so I used vertical markers just as a guide to make sure I wasn’t over expanding my shapes and I think it helped. The more I practice the more accurate I’ll become ( fingers crossed). I could have tried a grid as well or a model sheet on another layer.