How Long Does One Scene Take?

Thought I'd post a little something you may or may not find interesting. ;)  This'll give you an idea as to how time-consuming animation can be.

The average scene is 6 seconds long, so I'll use that as an example.  Action scenes take more or less time depending on the complexity so I'll just talk about a simple dialogue scene.  Remember, a 6-second-long scene has about 80 frames because we need 5-7 frames of padding after the dialogue so the next scene doesn't jump in too fast.

FIRST STEP: guidelines, aka stick figures.  Positioning them so that the head tilts and movement go along with the dialogue takes about 45 minutes.  This is usually the most tedious step because this is how the scene is put together.  Once this step is done, it gets easier.

When that is done, next I animate the eyes.  The eyes are the focal point and lead the way for expressions and whatever the character is thinking.  They have to be perfect because the eyes are what people watch.  This step can take from 45 minutes to 2 hours.

Next, lipsync!  This is probably my favorite thing about a dialogue scene.  Lipsync is about as important as the eyes, and we don't want any big mistakes here or they'll show.  Hmm...you know, I'm not sure how long this step takes, probably because I actually have FUN with it XD, but my guess is from an hour to an hour and a half.

When I'm positive everything looks good so far, I begin drawing the outline of the face and any other details like Gio's hairline or Strider's goatee.  This step can take a while because I tend to have the most problems with it, but at about 30 seconds of work per scene, that all adds up to 40 minutes for this step.

Next is hair.  Gio's hair is very complex and has three parts to it, which all move separately from each other.  I like to do the part that sticks up over his face, then the white part, then the black part.  This step takes around 4-5 hours.

Finally, his body, arms, and props.  This depends on what's happening in the scene.  If there's a lot going on, I can spend up to 5 hours on this part because these movements are sometimes the hardest to do.  I often need to act out the scene and watch myself in the mirror to be able to animate them.

There you have it: somewhere around 14 hours of work for 6 seconds of animation.  That doesn't even include the time spent on the background, outlines, and coloring; man, you don't even wanna KNOW how long that takes.  Holy moly, I have a lot of work to do...