Week 1: Initial proposal and ideation of the story, come up with basic storyboard and framework
Week 2: Plan, research, and solidify concept. What software? Is the story what I want to make?
Week 3: Create initial character sculpt. Attempted in Zbrush for first attempt and did not like it. Swapped to Blender for the second attempt. Felt much better creating the base mesh out of UV Spheres. Put down base colors and do remeshing to prep for the rig so the objects are connected and won't split apart.
Week 4: Detail the character sculpt. Start adding detail to the head adding eyes as separate objects. Use brushes to create the nose and eye sockets. Detail the torso and the legs. Make the clothing actually look like clothing with smaller details such as folds and pockets.
Week 5: Create character rig for animating. Rigify is a helpful tool in blender but does not always work. Face rig would not work properly using a rigify base mesh so deleting bones and creating my own worked better. Never could get inverse kinematics to work for the bones so settling with forward kinematics despite them being worse for the leg controls.
Week 6: Create base models for scene. Graybox the entire scene so the layout makes sense. Was not sure if I would use a bathroom in the finished film just for detail but found it unnecessary for the story I wanted to tell. Saves a lot of time and effort. Same thing applies for scenery outside of window. Camera shots will make it so its not necessary to model objects outside the apartment.
Week 7: Finish scene with textures. Make sure the colors work well with the lighting. They are distinct enough even in dark lighting so that they are not a complete blur. Since they are not the focus of any part of the film no need to overcomplicate them. Add more objects as necessary when detail seems lacking.
Week 8: Prep the animation with camera work and lighting. Get as much character and object animation done for the beginning of the film as possible. More focus was put into lighting and camera work so that I know exactly what the character needs to be doing so no time is wasted animating actions that will not be seen by the viewer.
Week 9: Animate the remainder of the film. The camera work is sorted out as well as the lighting. All that is needed is the character animation as well as small animations on some objects. Finalize the timing and speed of all the character movement and shots.
Week 10: Record basic sounds to use and reuse throughout the film. Small secondary sounds as time allows but focus on the important sounds that contribute to the environment and the feel of the film. Make sure the final render looks as it is supposed to.