Since Clip Studio Paint doesn’t allow audio scrubbing, I started by going through and very meticulously timing the animation using quickly drawn stick figures, essentially. I wanted to map out the audio and major movement prior to roughing out the animation more definitively so I had an idea of the flow.

Then I started drawing out the characters. I struggled to stay stylistically consistent during this part, I realise this could be attributed to not practicing enough in the style before animating, I think an expression sheet, a full reference of the head angles, and a proper reference sheet would’ve helped me with that a lot. I also recognise that I was very swamped with the vertical slice project at the point, and barely had time to sleep. I think I’ve made massive improvements with time management, but there’s still some work to do in that area.

I knew with the time I had to animate that I’d only get a cleaned up, lined animation, no background or colouring. My intention is to submit the cleaned up animation and then finish it for my portfolio.

Here are the various stages the animation went through.

It was when I began lining that Alec gave me the feedback that Jude (the girl) need to move a bit more. So I took his feedback and added a subtle jump when he says ‘sure I do’ as per what I was told to do. I also added an eyeroll at the end of the animation so she wasn’t so static.

I think I could’ve still added more movement to Jude, and smoothed out more for Cardan, but I’m happy with my progress on this animation so far.