Tips for Creating and Animating a Cute and Simple Character

Course description

In this free online course, you will learn helpful tips on how to create a simple, cute and appealing character, as well as animating and looping it to give a simplistic wave while blinking the eyes. The course is designed to bring to life and add realism to your animated characters. Enroll for an easy and fun breakdown of some of the principles of animation such as easing in and out, drag, arcs, and appeal.

This course uses the Toon Boom Harmony program to create a character that blinks while waving at the same time in a continuous loop. The essence of this online animation tutorial is to create some realism and bring your character to life. In the introduction, you will meet the course instructor and view her educational background. Then, you will be taught how to create a simple, cute and appealing character using any graphic design software. What to look out for and factors to consider when creating the character will be highlighted.

Next, you will learn how to enable the existing drawing to either ‘animation’ or ‘character’ format using the Toon Boom Harmony animation program. Study how to trace and retrace your character or drawing on to new keyframes, which will show the character’s neutral position, arms up and out. You will also be taught how to copy and paste frames using ‘paste special’ so that when you modify the drawings it would not affect the first frame. Creating a breakdown drawing and in-between frames will also be introduced. Furthermore, how to add several in-between frames to the animation character so that the animation can ease in and out of keyframes to add cushion to the work will be covered. The focus then moves on to the waving arm of your character. Retracing the entire character to meet the current frame or movement without affecting the first drawing will be considered. Additionally, ‘pops’ and ‘favouring’ in animation will be discussed.

Furthermore, you will study how to create a buffer before the character waves to bring realism and liveliness to it. How to use the ‘onion skin tool’ and create multiple buffers will be highlighted. Then, you will learn how to add a background and change its colour. See how to colour your animation and close lines using the ‘close gap tool’ when colour bleeds during filling. Accessing the layers on the right side of the screen, as well as activating the linear strokes in Toon Boom Harmony will be considered. The steps to export your animation from Toon Boom Harmony to any movie format will be explained. There is also a bonus video teaching you how to add blinks to your character. This course will be beneficial to beginners studying animation and graphic design. Enrol now and start learning today!