Uploaded February 2016 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Do you want to know more? Visit 2danimation101.com/art-of-character-animation
Hi, Sydney here for http://www.2danimation101.com. Ok, as promised in my last video, I will continue our journey and try to prove that we can learn to do art in character animation.
Not just learn to use a software, but learn the artistic side of doing character animation.
Ok. Ready? here are the 3 steps do to awesome character animation.
Step 1. Before posing or animating… first, Understand your character.
Give you character something to live for, something to believe, something to want.
This is what goes on in the minds of great artists doing character animation.
They don’t just think… “Oh… I will move the hand here and make her blink there…
No. They are imagining all kinds of things… what does she hate… what does she love.
Once you have that, you can make them feel something, which leads to...
Step 2. Understanding your character’s emotions.
Let’s say someone yelled at your character. How does she feel about it? sad? Angry? Indifferent?
You need to understand completely how your character is supposed to feel in your shot.
So imagine... Close your eyes and deeply think… imagine you are the character and you are boing yelled at… how would you feel?
Once you have that emotion… you can move to…
Step 3. Express that emotion.
This is when you take your mouse and keyboard and start moving stuff around in your computer. When you start animating.
Your mission is to express emotions with your characters.
So this not about having your character WALKING to the office. No.
It’s about showing how your character hates his job WHILE WALKING to the office. All grumpy and disappointed.
So, what do you think about this 3 step process? How do you plan to use it? Tell me in the comments, let’s get some ideas from each other. What’da’ya’say?
Ok. That’s it for today. In my next video, I will talk about 4 things you can do to perform better in these 3 steps.
Bye bye for now!