How To Do Character Animation

Lessons:

• GestureDrawings

• CharacterDesigns

• TheAnimation

• TheLocation

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Introduction:

Hi! My name is Jacob Penna, and you can say that I’m kind of an animator, NO, I am an animator! And today we’re going to be talking about what to do with your character design so you can use it for character animation! Let’s get started!

• Lesson1:GestureDrawing.

So when it comes to character animation, is really important that you focus on your gesture drawings. And gesture drawings which you can see in the bottom , and is really important because you need to start drawing from life before you can start drawing your cartoon characters and everything. For example, you can draw somebody sitting, or you can find great example of life from the internet. Also you need to draw from your eye view. Once you get that handled from drawing realistically, you can start drawing your cartoon characters. Another great example can be family pictures! Is very important to start gesture drawing from there ! So that would be the first step you need to do before drawing cartoons is gesture drawing.

Lesson 2: Character Design

This is the most fun and experimenting thing once you understand the gestures and the anatomy of the character. Once you understand all of that, it’ll be so much fun to start designing. For example you can make a giant character, a skinny character or a teeny tiny character that can be with a hero or villain of some sort. This was a character I made name Sir Thomas where he used to be a scientist, but he became like what. you see here, he’s now an old guy to escape the trama he has endured. Coming up with character is such a fun and interesting concept once you start exploring everything around you.

MPORTANT: Model sheets are super important if you want to (obviously) want to turn the character arounds. Also some facial expressions will be super helpful for the animators so they have a great idea where to animated him.

Lesson 3: The Animation

Now lets get to the Animation! Please keep in mind with the key frames. Heres an example from “The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams.”

You do the first three drawings right? After that, you focus on the in-betweens from the first drawings. Then you do the same to the middle and add the in-betweens. do the same with the last drawing and once your done, you go on and focus on the next in-betweens. Once you understand this method without being afraid, you’ll be animating in know time!

IMPORTANT:

Another good way is by recording yourself! And make sure is expressive! Make sure you follow the key method if you want to to get the poses just right. One low, one medium and one extreme!

Hope you can learn something from this! Lets get to the final lesson.

Lesson 4: The Location

This is super important! The location can be anywhere as long is not as if is not a blank canvas. Location can be in a city, or a fictional world you can made up, as long if is organized. A good example is Adventure Time! They have a lot of different locations! Locations like the Tree Fort: Finn and Jake lives or the Candy Kingdom where Princess Bubblegum lives or Ice King lives in the land of Ooo. You can follow these examples through all of these shows. Keep on researching and exploring if you want the world to understand where your character comes from for a great storytelling experience.

(All rights of the image go to Pendleton Ward)

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You made it to the end of this lesson! Short and sweet right? I hope you have fun learning and I would love to hear from your opinions. Take care of yourself, keep on exploring and experimenting, and take care of yourself! Have a good one and goodnight!

Heres a fun sketch from me after completing this lesson! Have fun!

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