As an animator, all of my work begins with a storyboard. I make sure to plan out camera motion, action choices, and composition using quick, gestural work. Once I've been able to establish the timing that I want using my storyboards to iterate quickly, I move on to animation.
Animation begins with a blocking pass, with a focus on matching the key storytelling poses necessary for the shot in stepped tangents. Facial expressions, body mechanics, and acting choices are all refined during this stage, so that the entire performance is visible from the early stages.
From here, the blocking is refined with further breakdown poses and revisions to performance, timing, and composition. Once the entire piece is broken down to poses on every four frames or fewer, it's time to move into spline.
Once in spline, focus shifts to ensuring the arcs, spacing, and timing of the piece are as clear as possible, but changes to performance may still be implemented as critique continues. 2D drawovers using Bluepencil, SyncSketch, or other frame-by-frame analysis programs are used to bring everything up to a high level of polish.