For more information about the process, check out Tonari Animation's video on the subject of how anime is actually made. This process is something I borrowed from it. If there's anything else that wasn't taken from the video, I may have learned from tons and TONS AND TONS of various sources I had to find while using Google Translate in Japanese for a few months, examples are effects like the diffusion filter(DF) on Sonic and that huge ugly "incident light"(入射光) in the corner.
I don't use any x-sheets(I rarely do), just the timeline docker.
Minus the meetings for planning, the order in which my own process goes is:
1. Character design/color specifications(I would use this, otherwise I could just pick colors from a cel-shaded character in a previous illustration)
2. Storyboards, however I replaced them with thumbnail sketches
3. Layout sketch, with fx
4. Layout corrections(in pink), making sure the backgrounds look great, character placements look good, and the fx are more detailed and realistic
5. Character corrections(in yellow), making sure the characters are on model and looking good
6. Key animation
7. Key animation corrections(also in yellow, ....okay so I'm still learning, I've forgotten about what an episode director would do to check keyframes, sorry)
8. Background painting(you don't see much of the principles of design here, just a crappy blue background lol)
9. Inbetweens(or an attempt at inbetweens at least, I think I hardly did any corrections there), tracing on key frames while adding extra frames between them to bridge them(honest to God, it's the most rigorous and laborious part of the process ever as well as the last of all the drawings, I almost didn't want to do this step)
10. Coloring, with cel-shading based on the color specifications(sometimes fixing colors too depending on how indecisive I am)
11. Compositing, with effects common in "anime shooting"(アニメ撮影), like the diffuse filter and incident light mentioned above, I did this part in Blender 2.92.
Then there'd be voice-overs and sound effects, final edits before broadcasting or whatever else, but this run cycle animation is way too small and amateurish for any of that.
I ordered a Huion KAMVAS Pro 12 on December 22nd, it'll arrive sometime this week, and now I'm planning to adjust to a shorter, slightly less pressure-inducing animation process for everything else over time, because I've spent almost a real hell of lifetime trying to get this done. Like I said, this is just a fan-animation, don't give me any of that "X should hire you!" bullcrap. I'm not worth a fuck whatsoever.
