Tips for Quickly Creating Animation Characters

Creating exciting animated videos is an important skill that requires animated character design. Creating compelling characters for your videos can be a challenging task. Thankfully, you have many resources to help you on your journey.

The skill of creating animated explainer videos is an excellent asset for any business. A survey reported that 93% of companies that use explainer videos in their campaigns can give their customers a better understanding of their products/services.

Behind the creation of any character, there is a thoroughly vetted concept, a lot of discussions, research, and key decisions, so these ideas come to life in the best possible way. So, don’t waste another minute, and let’s continue reading the ultimate guide to creating the best-animated character designs.

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Ask yourself some important questions

No matter whether you are creating residential buildings or animated characters, you need to do some research on your project. Here are some questions you need to ask.

What type of audience am I targeting? Does my target audience prefer funny, serious, or other types of personas?

What kind of characters matches the brand’s persona?

What kind of protagonist would best serve the purpose of the business? Should I use icons, symbols, or some ordinary person on the block?

Before proceeding, you must have a clear answer to these questions. The answers to these questions will tell you how to move forward, and the answers will determine the nature of the project. After jotting down the answers to the questions, you should jot down the types of characters you want to use in your video.

Understanding the types of animation videos

Having fully understood your needs, you are now ready to take the next step. You should now know the popular character design types for the animation to decide on the most suitable character for your project.

Iconic Design

Iconic animation characters are less fancy. These characters are usually faceless and blocky. That said, these characters are also impressive. It penetrates the minds and hearts of people regardless of class, gender, religion, etc.

Iconic videos are perfect for corporate videos that aim to convey complex concepts to the viewer. This type of video conveys a message without any specific character drawing attention to it.

Popular style characters

We usually find popular-style characters in comic books and cartoons. These characters are expressive. These characters are designed to catch the limelight and dominate the screen. The audience feels their inner energy as they watch them perform.

If your brand is related to fashion, entertainment, and humor, using these characters is perfect for positioning your brand among your target audience.

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Start sketching and experimenting

Now that you know about the popular types of animated characters and how to choose the best one for you, you should start experimenting. Use pencil and paper or use software to sketch out the attitudes and expressions of these characters. However, you must not become emotionally attached to these characters.

Use the characters you have drawn and try to fit them into the story. Get some feedback. If it doesn’t match, get over it and start experimenting again. Even great designers go through a trial-and-error phase before they create a masterpiece. You must make sure that each character fits the motto of the video.

Studies show that over 75% of users like to share branded videos if they find them interesting.

Come up with key poses for your characters

If you are designing characters for a video longer than 10 minutes, you will be dealing with characters at many stages of the story. Draw your characters, depicting the various emotions they need to show at different stages of the video. These images should bring the video to life.

Certain characters may not fit into many scenes of the video. If you find one, try to adjust it, or you should consider choosing another character.

Animating your characters

The last task in your hands is to set up animations for your character. You will need to perform motion tests to approve your character. You will be surprised how much you can learn by watching your animated character’s movements. You can also give life to your character using the character animation after-effects tool.

For 2D animation, here are some common tools available for animating 2D characters.

Animate CC: Animate CC is a simple tool to get you started right away. It is a great software for beginners because the learning curve is shorter than other software.

Toon Boom Harmony: This software caters to advanced animators who want to create complex animations. It can do almost everything a 2D animator wants to do. Having said that, beginners can also enjoy this tool and use its basic features.

Adobe After Effects: It is a popular tool for character binding, mouth synchronization, and more. After spending some time learning the basics, you can start using After Effects and you can integrate third-party plugins with this software to enhance its functionality.

Here is some good 3D animation software.

Blender: Blender is open-source free software that can do modeling, video post-processing, animation, lighting, etc.

Autodesk Maya: Autodesk Maya is a powerful application that is perfect for professional animators. You can use it for motion graphics, modeling, 3D animation, rendering, virtual reality, and more.

Regardless of the type of animation, the process requires specific knowledge, skills, hardware and software to apply. Wingfox is a professional online digital art education platform where you can learn exactly the knowledge and skills you want. It has tutorials on all aspects of digital art, including character modeling, scene creation, and more. If you are interested, please feel free to come and learn online. You won’t regret your choice.