Start to finish

At the start my first initial idea was

and it has become a lot better than this since the beginning.

After a couple of different attempts that is what I ended up with, the water going through a few minor changes and a few tests to get a better look on the water itself, having changed not just that the clouds were bad and also the cave was very amateurish.

You can tell from the assets of the first idea. 

I should have named the layers, but that would take a bit too long and when I drew the items sometimes it was just shading so I could move things and change it easier.

Artist Reply

Having an artists email to be able to reach out and ask them questions is helpful, I did email a favourite artist of mine. He does animations and told me about how he started.
Jeff Le bars he has a website of his own with an amazing showreel at his own website jefflebars.com/ .
After making contact with him he told me about the programs he used and how he started off.
I started the conversation by sending an email to him, this was when I was 17 and I'm not anymore,

He responded saying that he used paper to start with, sculpting and animating traditionally, he said the 
programs he uses,
"Photoshop, 3DsMax, TVPaint, After Effects and Premiere respectively for : backgrounds, characters,
 traditional animation, compositing and editing." He also said that he used a Wacom tablet. Which is the
same of the one I bought at home. 

He went on to explain that it takes a very long time to traditionally animate and it's a lot faster on the 
computer. He went on to explain that "Photoshop is good for making backgrounds or assets for After Effects
animation".
Then he explained that he uses TVPaint and that he's happy with it, which is what I want to now look into,
if you see the quality of his work, it's very very good, I recommend looking at his showreel.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbQgXeY_zi4

Proof of the conversation. I'd rather not show the emails themselves because of privacy. But he did say that

I could show the college the conversation, but I'd rather not just show the emails sent to me.

(3rd artist)