First Character Doll Completely Built

We've completed our first character!  Vector tracing, while an effective way to bring an existing figure to life in your animation, can be VERY TEDIOUS!  Luckily, I'm a professional.

Progress Screen Shots:

Creating the head of any character doll can be very trying, because this is where people will be looking the most when watching your character move and talk.  Many different layers, even though they look so simple!  If the head needs to blink, an animator has to be able to do that independently from the mouth and eye-brow layers, unless they want to work twice as hard and redraw the face for every movement... Luckily, that's not what we're doing here today, but I actually do enjoy some frame-by-frame motions, as well!

The torso links everything together, and therefore deserves it's own layer, as well. This is where most characters show you their personality, either through apparel or maybe some sort of subliminal idea, i.e. maybe instead of a tie, this character could have a ripped shirt and grease stains from oily chips, completely changing who the character is and how they come across to an audience.

Now that our first character is built, we have all our layers prepared to build the remaining characters!  Character builds can be as detailed or as simple as you want... I personally like to build them in a way that feels streamlined but still gives you a traditional and classical animation appeal while still being efficient to produce.  I accomplish this by adding less joints and drawing any appendages that bend or pivot as one unit, as opposed to creating another layer and symbol association.

That's all for now!  Stay tuned for more!

Animation by Smirk Studios for project "The Boros" using Adobe Animate.
All rights reserved.  More info as the project unfolds!  Keep it posted here for more updates on the production of "The Boros."

Art/Animation by Joshua H. Metz

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