So last week I did a proper schedule, and as expected, It freaked me out... It came to 45 days of work at a pace far from the one I'm at. So I had to re-think the way I work.
I was drawing one Background at the time. The process was, Print the storyboard on an A3, look for references, Draw a detailed pencil drawing, Ink It and then shade it.
Each process is fairly easy and relatively efficient. However by working this way I was loosing a lot of time, wondering what to do, looking for things on the internet, getting distracted by facebook etc.
I would also lose time in between each steps, out of procrastination or lack of motivation. If It was 8.30 pm and I wanted to work till 9, I wouldn't start a new drawing, other wise it would easily end up being 11...
Plus It meant that I needed to finish every background completely to be able to animate every shot.
The new plan is more efficient because I have lots of task to choose from, and I can turn off the computer during a whole day if I want to.
The new process is print lots of BGs (maybe 10), look for all the references needed for those BG, then draw and ink all those 10 BG. I keep the shading for later. The shading process will run until the end of production.
This way in a few days I should be able to have the outlines of all the background, and so I will be able to start animation at any time.
My animators friends also recommended to keep other things to do while animating, to have something to relax my head with.
I managed to do 8 backgrounds in one day an a Half!
This week I'm in the contry side, without electricity, internet, or even cell phone coverage, so I will focus on shading those 8 back grounds.
Hopefully I'll finish all of them!
Here are this week 8 inked Bg:
As always feel free to comment HERE