Animated characters are taking over the digital world. From friendly mascots to wise mentors to zany sidekicks, these virtual personas make content more engaging, trainings more dynamic, and brands more memorable.
But creating an effective animated character takes more than just software skills. You need to understand animation principles, character development strategies, design best practices, and leveraging tactics to make your creation a success.
This comprehensive guide provides everything you need to make captivating animated characters that wow audiences. Let‘s dive in!
Why Are Animated Characters So Effective?
Before we get into the how-to, let‘s look at why animated characters should be part of your content strategy:
Boost Engagement
Animated characters capture attention and interest. They bring energy and fun to otherwise static content. Studies show including animated characters can improve learning retention by up to 400%!
Appeal to All Ages
Unlike photos of real people, animated characters appeal across cultures and age groups. Their universal recognition makes them versatile for many applications.
Build Brand Recognition
A consistently-used character becomes associated with your brand. It helps build awareness and connections with your audience.
Simplify Complex Topics
Human-like animated characters allow you to put a friendly face on complex topics. Viewers engage more with an animated explainer than dry facts alone.
Establish Trust
Animated characters can be used as guides, teachers and assistants to build relationships with viewers. They feel more "real" than static images.
With all these benefits, it‘s no wonder that 93% of marketers leverage visual content with animation and characters.
Now let‘s explore all the options for creating them!
Animated Character Types
Before choosing tools and techniques, you need to decide what type of animated character meets your needs. Here are the main options:
2D vs 3D
2D characters have a flat, cartoon quality with relatively simple movement. They are easier and quicker to create.
3D characters have dimension, depth and more complex motions. They tend to be more realistic looking.
For most simple applications, 2D is sufficient and more accessible. But 3D allows for greater flexibility.
Cartoon vs Realistic
On the spectrum from cartoonish to ultra-lifelike, consider your character style.
Cartoon styles work well for young audiences or light-hearted contexts. They have exaggerated, whimsical features and movements.
Realistic digital humans are at the other end of the spectrum. They allow for nuanced facial expressions and discussions of more serious topics.
Most characters fall somewhere in between depending on their context and purpose.
Static vs Animated
Static characters do not move though they may have different expressive poses. They have a flat appearance similar to illustrations or logos.
Animated characters have movements and actions, often synchronized with audio. This better holds viewer attention and builds connections.
Simple static characters are much easier to create than fully animated ones. Evaluate whether animation is worth the extra effort.
Costumed Mascot
For live or virtual events, a costumed mascot brings a branded character into the real world. The costume requires extensive design considerations beyond just the digital appearance.
Overview of Animation Software Options
There is a wide spectrum of tools for creating animated characters—from basic to advanced. Consider these top options:
Adobe Animate CC – Robust dedicated 2D animation software with powerful drawing and authoring capabilities. Extensive controls over character articulation and movement.
Toon Boom Harmony – Advanced 2D/3D pipeline preferred by major animation studios. Sophisticated rigging, deformation and scene set up.
Blender – Open source 3D creation platform with full suite of modeling, texturing, animation and rendering functionality. Steeper learning curve but extremely versatile.
Unity – Robust real-time 3D development platform. Built-in Mecanim animation system. Great for interactive experiences or VR/AR. Requires coding knowledge.
Autodesk Maya – Industry standard for 3D animation and effects. Powerful character rigging tools for animating humanoids and creatures. Long learning curve.
Reallusion CrazyTalk – Quickly generate animated 2D heads and facial expressions from images. Novice-friendly with good preset content.
Reallusion Character Creator – Quickly generate 3D humanoid characters with sophisticated customization controls. Optimized for iClone real-time animation.
Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop – Leverage to create and refine 2D vector or bitmap artwork assets in your animation pipeline.
The software chosen depends largely on the character complexities required and technical skills of the creator. Do some evaluations to choose the optimal tool for your needs.
Developing Character Personas
Whether you plan a simple static mascot or complex digital human, your animated character must align to a defined persona. Decide these key elements early in development:
Appearance
Consider species, age, gender, proportions, facial features, expressions, clothing/accessories. These visual qualities reflect your character’s role and personality.
Backstory
Even if not explicitly shared, know details of your character’s fictional life, origins and experiences that shaped who they are.
Personality Traits
Define descriptors like silly, scholarly, enthusiastic, sarcastic, caring, scatterbrained, adventurous etc. to inform how your character speaks, poses and moves.
Take the time up front to refine your character concept before jumping into technical creation.
Design Best Practices
With your persona fleshed out, apply these design principles:
Consistent Color Palette
Limit colors to a complementary triad or tetrad scheme. Reuse colors across costume, props and backgrounds.
Strong Silhouette
Identify your character by their distinct body and facial shape. Push appealing exaggerations for cartoons.
Appealing Features
Position oversized heads/facial features closer to top of long narrow bodies for cuteness. Add distinctive hair, clothing pieces or accessories.
Exaggerated Motion
Stretch, squash and bounce movements to add appeal, weight and dynamics. Use anticipation to lead more extreme actions.
Animation Techniques
Whether rigging a full body puppet in Toon Boom or using auto lip sync in Animate CC, utilize these techniques:
Establish Key Poses
Set strong base poses at start and end states to achieve primary action objective before filling in secondary motion.
Overlap Action
Introduce multi-part actions sequentially so they flow smoothly from one to the next.
Follow Through Motion
Add secondary movements (hair, clothing, props) that continue past primary body motion creating rich, layered animation.
Apply the 12 principles of animation to bring professional polish.
Step-by-Step: Creating an Animated Character with CrazyTalk
To make this all more concrete, let’s walk through creating Evie, the enthusiastic but bumbling corporate trainer, using Reallusion CrazyTalk:
1. Import Base Artwork
Pull in reference art created in Illustrator showing Evie in front and side view to autogenerate an animatable 3D head.
2. Fit Head Shape
Use the Face Fitting tool to align the generic head mesh to the artwork facial features and proportions.
3. Refine Features
Enhance shapes, skin tone and textures for eyes, nose, mouth, hair and eyelashes to match concept art.
4. Set Expressions
Customize eyebrow shapes, eye look direction and mouth poses across six expression presets to achieve distinguishable emotions.
5. Lip Sync Animation
Import speech audio, generate mouth visemes for syllables and fine tune synchronization to timeline.
6. Record Motion
Using webcam, capture facial movements while acting out mannerisms that reflect Evie’s excitable personality. Review and polish captured animation curves.
7. Render Video
With head movements, expressions and lip sync combined onto the timeline, render out full facial animation video for compositing in external applications.
Now that you’ve met Evie, let’s look at how to best leverage your custom-created characters.
Get the Most Value from Animated Characters
Don’t leave your characters isolated in standalone videos. Integrate them across platforms for maximum visibility and familiarity with your audience.
Website Mascots
Place characters on homepage banners, category pages and in iconography across site. Link to dedicated bio pages.
Explainer Videos
Produce “hosted” tutorials, product demos, onboarding etc.. Ask characters questions for conversational scripts.
Social Media
Schedule regular posts featuring character posing with products/messaging. Coordinate visual themes across channels.
Advertisements
Cut customized character messaging to insert around video inventory or display ads. Align to campaign themes.
Email Campaigns
Include character imagery in email templates and signatures. Carry through mascot presence across touchpoints.
Virtual Assistants/Chatbots
Incorporate consistent character as branded interface for automated customer service applications.
Animated Characters Done Right
Let’s explore a few real-world examples of brands leveraging custom animated characters effectively across mediums.
Moxie – Embarc Collective
The energetic, teenage phenom Moxie greets website visitors and stars in numerous explainer and promotional videos for the Embarc Collective non-profit empowering girls in STEAM skills.
Her effusive persona builds connections with the target tween audience. They aim to ultimately introduce Virtual Moxie as an interactive chatbot.
Professor Wendy & Class – NexLP Story Scientist
Law firm NexLP developed the Story Scientist video series with Professor Wendy and her animated class.
These relatable, quirky students query Wendy to digest complex ediscovery and legal concepts for clients with engaging humor and simplified visual explanations.
Aida & Micah – Unity
For the 2021 Unity conference, real-time 3D characters Aida and Micah hosted the live streamed event.
They interviewed specialists across segmentation, facial tracking and data-driven content production. As digital humans, they establish Unity‘s expertise in 3D capabilities and pipeline.
The consistency, customization and context of these characters all contribute to memorable and truly effective usage.
Key Takeaways
- Know your goals and audience needs before developing a character
- Build out backstories and personalities to shape designs
- Use style and animation principles to create appealing, expressive characters
- Select software tailored to skill level and project complexity
- Promote characters actively across platforms for maximum visibility
Bringing an animated character to life takes both strategy and creativity. But the payoff of resonating more deeply with your viewers makes the effort well worth it!
So pick your tools, craft your persona and start animating your next captivating character!
