1. First I start acting out the dialogue myself, at this point I want to try some actions I have in my mind regarding the Acting. You need to remember that Animation is all about the Acting. And yes I know I look like crap, I was recording this at 2 a.m. Sorry for that.
2. Then I study my video reference by seeing it a lot of times, really a lot of times! then I make thumbnails sketches from it, this helps me to understand all the movement, and I can establish my most important poses and actions. Doing this sketches is like rehearse your shot before start doing it.
3. Then I block my lipsync by assigning a frame number, this process is similar to the thumbnails sketches, but with the difference that here I`m not looking for the most important poses but the phonemes of all the audio. You can use an Exposure Sheet in fact I recommend you do, here i've used justa blank sheet. Sorry this image is just from a part of the entire audio, I've lost the the others sheets.
4. Then I jump into my actual shot, at this stage I try to translate my previous sketches into my Rough Animation, but also I can make changes and decisions using all the knowledge and considerations I learned by studied my video reference. This way I can push my poses to make them look more interesting. My main point at this stage is to make all the Animation Works, without focusing in making full good looking drawings. This process needs to be build by passes. First I make my golden poses, then I'll be adding Keyframes, Extremes, Breakdowns and Inbetween Drawings.
5. Finally comes the last step that is to make all your drawings look cool! This process is probably the most fun one, But keep in mind that even at this stage I'm refining little things in Animation. Cool you're done!