Character animation is often what clients look for when determining whether your animation skills are suited for their project needs. This also sometimes takes up the most significant amount of time in your animation production pipeline as animating complex characters can take ages.
However, with simple character animation design, you can set your project up for success and shave off those extra hours from your production time! Can you imagine no longer having to spend 8 hours a day working with character design that takes 10 years to move an individual finger? Complexity is great, but it does take away precious time in completing a project.
In this blog, we'll cover some tips and tricks on how you can create a simple animation character design for any project, and complete your animation projects in a breeze!
Understand Your Message and Target Audience
The first thing to understand is the project message and target audience. What are you or the client trying to communicate? Who do you want to communicate your animations to? How will your animation help them understand this message? These questions should be answered before delving into the details of creating a simple animation character design process.
A good way to start answering these questions is to create a brief. This brief will help you in designing and animating later on. Through this brief, you'll be guided in establishing a simple animation character design process in which you lay the foundation of your project.
Establish Animation Style & Direction
Establishing your animation style and direction is the first step in creating a successful animated character. Your chosen style should resonate with your audience (or your client's audience if you're working with one) and the message you’re trying to convey.
It must also be consistent with your overall design philosophy or fall under any branding guidelines established at your project's pre-production stage. And again, it must be relevant to the target audience—if they don’t relate to or understand what you’re trying to animate, then chances are they won’t get it.
So how do we determine the animation style? Ask yourself some key questions:
- What are my distinct strengths as an animator?
- What type of animation fits best with my skill set?
- How can I amplify those strengths while minimizing any weaknesses?
- What does the client look for in the overall project output?
Simple Animation Character Design Saves Time
GIF by vortexanomaly via GIPHY
Let me say it again, simple animation character design saves time.
A simple animation character design is easier to draw and animate than more complex characters, which means the finished animation will be ready to go in no time. You could be up and running with a few hours of work or less depending on how experienced you are with your animation production pipeline.
Utilize Available Resources for Simple Animation Character Design
You can reuse existing animation resources to make your project more efficient. If you have an older animation of a character and it's no longer relevant, recycle it! Make sure you're not stepping on the toes of any NDA or copywrites either. You can also use the same rig or model for another character as well. This will save time and money (and avoid creating multiple versions of the same thing).
GIF by Percolate Galactic via GIPHY
For example, if you're working on a game and need some motion graphics for an intro sequence that you're creating for a new animation client and can't afford to hire someone just yet because they're still working on another project elsewhere in production (or whatever), try animating something similar using free tools like Adobe Illustrator CC or Sketch 3D Pro by Autodesk—these programs come with plenty of prebuilt templates that work well together with each other so you don't need much direction when starting out.
The more clients and animation projects you take on, your asset library and ability to reuse or recycle animations will grow, giving you an easier time to animate and a much shorter production period later on.
Don't Be Afraid to Ask for Help For Simple Animation Character Design
GIF by Disney Channel via GIPHY
Here's the thing: you shouldn't be afraid to ask for help. Your animation mentor, animation community and other animator peers are there for you. In fact, it's encouraged that you ask questions. They're a wealth of knowledge. So don't be shy about reaching out and asking them questions when you need assistance with simple animation character design in your projects.
Asking questions isn't easy; especially if you're new to working on projects or as an animator in general. But there's no shame in asking for assistance from someone who has more experience than yourself—and it will only make your work stronger!
If you want to learn more about simple animation character design or how to improve your skills, reach out to us and consider taking on our Animation Business Accelerator Program!
Why Simple Animation Character Design is Essential
GIF by One Day At A Time via GIPHY
Simple animation character design is the perfect solution for elevating your projects. It’s a great way to attract the attention of potential clients and help them understand what you can offer. You don’t need any special skills or software packages, just imagination and some time on your hands (or not). And it doesn't cost anything!
If you want to elevate your animation projects even more or need answers to any other questions you might have, be sure to follow our blogs, check out our free masterclass, and our Animation Business Accelerator Program, download a copy of our free marketing handbook, and check out our blog on “How to Start an Animation Studio”!
