How do you start storyboarding for your animation?

This article explores the techniques you need to use to start your animation storyboarding process.

An In-Depth Guide to Storyboard Techniques for Animation Studios

Since animation is a moving visual media created entirely from scratch, it needs to have a solid foundation created to verify its semantics. This is the task of the storyboard. Essentially, this is a visual way to organize and get a feel of what each scene and shot will look like. That's why a storyboard design may end up looking a lot like comic panels. The difference is that their main purpose isn’t to showcase the artist’s rendering skills but to guide the shots of the animation.
There are three ways in which you can approach storyboarding:

Traditional storyboards
This technique looks kinda like comic books. They’re usually drawn with a pencil or pen on a sheet of paper, illustrating each of the scenes or shots in the animation. Some traditional animation storyboards can be highly detailed. And include several components of each acne just to make sure it will all work put in action. For animation, they also have to count for the mechanics of all actions.

Thumbnail storyboards
These storyboards often appear similar to traditional ones; you can simply do them with pen and paper. However, what sets them apart is that they're highly detailed and include every part and shot of each drawing. This level of detail is essential to ensure no scene in the final animation shot is left incomplete. All you have to do is follow the storyboard as a reference and create the animation accordingly.

Digital storyboards
This is the process of storyboarding using digital art programs and resources. Here, you can use any digital art software or 3D modeling tools like Blender. This includes using onion skin on your animation apps like Procreate to create a clear motion path for your animation.

What are the steps of storyboarding?
So now that we know what the three types of storyboarding are, how do we actually start the process?

Define your goals
Before you take your pen to your paper or pick up your stylus, you need to brainstorm your animation's concept and physics.

Brainstorm your ideas
It's always a good idea to run your ideas by colleagues, friends, or collaboration partners.

Create a timeline for your story
Always have the flow of the story in mind. This includes knowing the complete timeline of your work. Identify the start, critical transitions, and a cohesive end of the story.

Begin sketching
Once you have all the previous steps figured out, you can finally start storyboarding for the animation. Always remember to number your pages and create adequate gutters for the panels.

Wrapping Up
That brings us to the end of this article, covering all the details you must know before you drive into storyboarding for your next animation project. Make sure to follow each step and not skim out on the storyboarding process, as tsi forms the reference for you.