So what's the best way to make an actual short animation? I've made somewhere between 30s-1 min of practice animations this month, but I have a story that I want to animate, and I think it could be a nice challenge.

Right now I'm in the planning phase. I think I will make a short written script and I am also figuring out the exact tone and style that I want to hit (i.e. if I want it slightly playful or more serious).

I am guessing the next step would be to make a storyboard and an animatic. This would help me see how much work I have in front of me, and whether I need to make any changes if I want to finish the project by the end of Q3 (there will be an indie festival in my area).

Then if it looks good I "just animate" and make the backgrounds, doing roughs first, and then cleaning up + coloring (if I decide to do colors, black and white would also fit my theme). I've only done messier rough stuff so far, so if I want to make it nicer this step will probably take quite a while.

Audio is another important part, I'm guessing it wouldn't hurt to already have dialogue recorded fairly decently by the animatic stage.

I am thinking of starting off solo, and then I will ask around among my artist friends to see if someone might be willing to collaborate. I can already see that with animation it's much easier to get a nice end product if you have a team instead of going solo.

Any one of you ever did a bigger project like this? Do you have any advice?