Passion can take you places but its practice that adds excellence and as a beginner, there are multiple things that you have to look out for. As time is progressing so is the demand for better quality of work and that makes the job for animators and various other professions quite demanding.
If you have been looking for the dos and don’ts as an animator who has just begun then you are at the right place. Where software and skills do count here’s a roundup of all the techniques that you will find helpful in the course of designing and putting life into your imagination.
- Map out the story
If you are just starting up and then you definitely have a storyline to work on. You want to exercise your animating skills on your imagined story. However, before you pick a pencil and start sketching it is very important as an animator that you plan out every detail of your story.
Where animation is surely a great source of entertainment, a well thought plotline adds a much-needed charm to it. Hence, imagine your character and their environment as this will help you in making the essential notes needed for the story. This will not only give you good results but you’ll also be able to manage time.
- Animate with Time
Allotting time to animation is quite important in order to show the roles perform and deliver their part in an appropriate way. Hence, as a beginner, it is important for you to treat every action that you want your character to perform as a different time slot. This is important especially in the early phases so that you are able to give smooth transitions.
For this reason give time to every scene that you want to portray, for every action that your character might be doing it should have its own slot. It can be as simple as sitting and talking or standing and leaning. For this limit your timeline to each activity so that you can achieve smoothness.
- Exaggerate and Express
Animations are found interesting because they show what is not part of our usual life. Therefore, it is important to let your imagination do its magic. Where touch of reality is essential your audience would also demand some extraordinary out of the box act, let’s say the magical power of Elsa from Frozen.
This is why as a beginner try out and experience with some sort of exaggeration to express what your character might be feeling. This greatly helps in earning the attraction of the audience and also carves your story nicely.
- Give them Life
Giving life to your characters is extremely important, literally because only then would your audience be able to relate and enjoy your animation. Try to avoid rigidity while working on your projects.
As a 2D animator, you would be working with physical tools hence, use this opportunity to experiment with the movements. Show some slight movements through facial expressions or by tickling of the fingers. Show your character doing all the minimal acts any human would do even with the small animations.
- Concentrate on Facial Expression
When your face can tell stories in real life, it can also tell the story to your viewers through the facial expression of your characters. Thus, when designing your character be very vigilant about their facial expressions. It can be as simple as the arch of their brows or the frown that can deliver the right message without the words.
- Make it soundless to make it better
One important tip to develop a strong and impactful character is to make their body gestures strong enough. To achieve this it is important that you mute your dialogues and play the reel if the message is understood then the work is done right.
- Make Errors
Make errors? This does sound doubtful but here it’s not about your errors, it’s about the mistakes done by your character. A fall over the stones or the slip of papers from the hand anything that might show your character to be more human is good enough.
Where your spectators would want an extra ounce of fantasy they would also want to see the little ups and downs they experience in real life. This not only adds the charm to your play but it also brings it closer to reality.
Bottom Line:
Animation can’t be learned in one day and like anything else in life it takes time and patience but more importantly practice. Keeping these tips in mind you could perform better with your animation and with continuous efforts would also make your place in leading animation companies.
Harry James is a freelance blogger and a professional content writer. He love’s to write on any niche, currently working as a content manager at Dolphin Animation!