My gif animation process (Patreon)

Recently I've been making animation loops instead of working on the things I was supposed to be working on, and it occurred to me that it would be fun to do a little step-by-step of my process from rough sketch frames to the final result. So here it is in nine figures, step by step:

• rough sketch - mainly tried to get the right movement going, at the right rhythm

• cleanup sketch - I reduced the number of frames from 38 to 20, it's a bit jittery but going quality over quantity with the panels will definitely save me a lot of work later

• lineart - I tried something new this time, going for a much thicker outline than I usually have, to see how it works. I decided that I like the way it looks, and it's easier to make smooth than thin lines

• background colour - I isolated the lineart from the background, making the character separate from it, for easier shading

• rough shading - only two levels, light areas and dark areas

• refined shading - three levels, with highlight, shadow, and neutral shade area in the middle

• flat colours - I originally wanted this to have a yellow-orange-pink palette, but couldn't figure out how to make it work and didn't feel like this was the place to experiment, so I went with this soft pink purple shade range instead

• shading on colours - combined the flat lineart with the shading, trying to figure out how to make each area match in contrast but still be in its own visually pleasing colour range

• final touches - changed the lineart from stark black to a soft dark purple, made the lineart of the legs through the skirt lighter to give it more of a sense of sheer fabric, added highlights to the hair and skirt

...And that's my animation loop process. I've been procrastinating all my actual work by making this instead.