This time I was doing the animation alone, as Tom Paxton (who I collaborated with last time) had other commitments. However, I wasn't too daunted - using the experience from last time, I felt confident I could get it done in the 3 weeks given.
After receiving the brief, I started as I usually do: dedicating a good chunk of time to gathering as much resource material as possible. This includes the riders, their specific kit, logos and poses. For the latter, I usually coerce my boyfriend to act out the poses for me to photograph, especially if I'm drawing guys. It's also a lot quicker than trying to trawl through photo stock for the right pose. Watching anime also helped (but I would do that anyway ...)
The brief was nice and clear, so storyboards were done pretty quickly. I also didn't feel the need to take them further than the rough thumbnail stage (which of course I would have were I passing them forward to someone else to do the animating!)
The character designs changed slightly since 2015, I believe for the better! The three riders look a bit more mature and detailed than in the first season intro. Still, the existing character designs were a useful starting point and saved me a lot of time.
Last year we did the animation using Adobe Photoshop, because it was the only program Tom and I both had already. This time around I was free to use Toon Boom, which I had recently upgraded to Harmony. It was easily a much faster and smoother experience than PS, which isn't really designed for animating in anyway. Like last time, I composited it in Adobe After Effects. I was able to re-use the backgrounds from season 1, which saved me a bit of time (as simple as they are).
I haven't really gone into my process in great detail before, so I hopefully it was at least somewhat coherent and not too much of a ramble!