What makes a good animated character?

What makes a good animated character?

A good animated character has flowed movements, personalities that the audience can see and understand. The audience should be able to read the situation by seeing the character's attitude and actions if they are well presented.    

 A good animated character starts off with planning. Every animated shows you've seen all started off with creators gathering ideas and shooting references. 

                                                                    Here is an example: 

There are some who believed having reference is "bad" because it's like copying. Truthfully reference is your best friend. Keeping you on the right track and it truly helps when animating. From what I learned in this class, it's harder when you have to use your imagination. Professional animators NEED references and use references all the time!

    Everything you've seen from top companies like Disney, they all used references. 

    Example:
Disney's live action reference of Alice in Wonderland (side by side)

  

Add on: What also helps when shooting your reference video is understanding and truly know your character. How does your character act? Does your character move around a certain way? 

Dug from UP is totally different from Belle. From their personalities to movements.

The more you know and understand how your character acts and moves, the better you animate the character! A Turnaround and a character sheet should be needed to truly help understanding your character.

This is my original character design I created for another class. 

I had to do a full turnaround & character expressions

After gathering all your references...what's next?

Posing/Blocking

This part is breaking down your reference. Breaking down the movement, having the key poses. By highlighting the key poses, this will help the flow of the animation movement later on. 

Afterwards, you add in-between poses to connect the key poses.

Example: Blocking

 

Adding in more poses to connect the key poses

Splining

Splining is another process that helps in animation. It helps to convert the interpolation of  the keys from stepped to spline. This is to connect the movement between each poses.

A graceful flow from point A to point B

Timing of movements & Spacing

Timing animation is the time how long an action takes. Weight, scaling properties, and emotion is also important along with timing. Physics plays along with timing.  

Spacing animation is the spaces between frames. The functions of spacing is the same with timing if you want to create a believable movement.

Example: 

The timing of the chair rocking back and forth. To make it believable, Mike's body movement flows along with the chair. We also have to remember his body weight is implemented with the chair.

Another Example:

Though I did mention physics plays along with timing animation...you can overexaggerate movements as well that can't be done the same in real life. Such as this scene where Flint is typing/coding extremely fast. His fingers looks like they're flying everywhere & is arm wobbles like noodles

When you put it all together...

This is from Tiktok & YouTube 

[JGCruz3D]

 

Avengers with Behind The Scene

FNAF with Reference

Blue Sky Studio's animator Jeff Gabor

Reference/Blocking/Refining

Watching this one...I was really intrigued with his work. The timing, the personalities/expression, and even the exaggerations. Putting everything all together, Jeff was able to bring the characters to life with unique personalities. We could tell if the character was happy, sad, tired, ect. 

Lastly...Let's talk about what not to do...

Example 1:

The timing and movement are very off

They are trying to overexaggerate the feeling of scared/shock by the jump & eyes popping out..

but it just looks off because of the timing and movement.

This doesn't make the character feel like it's alive...

Comparison to Tom terrified movement.

Tom's movement is also exaggerated but it definitely screams to the audience that he is terrified.

The rapid movement and his pose, it fits very well to let the viewers know the situation. 

Example 2:

Guts from the animated Berserk series

Berserk is one of my favorite MANGA series of all times so seeing the animated version...I was pretty disappointed.

What makes this scene so weird looking is Guts walking pace. For a big dude, it looks like he is taking baby steps.

The timing is off and the movement isn't natural.

ALSO: the way a character walks can describe their personality as well. Knowing Guts as a character...this walking scene of his DOES NOT fit his personality or him overall as a character.

Comparison to good animated character walks

Conclusion

Having lots of references, understanding your character's personality and overalls, implying blocking, spline, ect. will help you create a good animated character. 

The more reference the better!

Now...to end this presentation!

Wall-E Impression Challenge!

SEQUENCE ANALYSIS WITH CHARACTER: LIGHT YAGAMI

 Character Study : Light Yagami (Death Note)

Character Analysis:

Name: Light Yagami

Gender: Male

Age: 17 (at the beginning) -- 23 (at series end)

Ethnicity: Japanese
Family: Soichiro Yagami (father), Sachiko Yagami (mother), Sayu Yagami (little sister)

Cultural background: Average

Intelligence (IQ): 200 (He is described to be a genius)

Education: Graduated college

Occupation: Police/Detective & Serial Killer

Religion/Philosophy: Agnosticism. He himself believe he is god. (has god-complex)

Sexual Orientation: 

Heterosexual(?) Light doesn't fall in love with anyone. He has "dated" two girls in the past (he was using them) and stated he should date more than one girl to Misa to not look suspicious 

Goals, ambition, dreams: He goal used to be become a police officer like his father. He has a strong sense of "justice". Throughout the series his goals went above & beyond when he gain more power. (The power to kill by writing a person's name down in a notebook). His new goal is to create a "new world that is free of injustice and populated only with people who he deems honest & kind".

Secrets: While pretending to work on his father's & L's (Light's enemy) side of getting rid of "Kira" (the killer who kills criminals), he was Kira all along.

Fears/Phobias: He is afraid of losing. He is also is afraid of getting caught and be revealed as Kira all along.

Sense of humor: He has cracked a joke a couple of times to come off as innocent & friendly

Adrenaline moments: Knowing when he won; when he writes a person's name down; when his plan goes the way he wanted.

Physical description: He is considered really handsome, leaned and tall. 
Physical disabilities, if any: Not physical but he has shown signs of having a god/messiah complex and extreme bipolar disorder

Action: He would laugh like a maniac and has a devious smirk when he wins or his plan goes well.

Character Pose: 

Light's appearance. He is an attractive man & is considered to be a genius, hardworking and kind amongst his friends, family, classmates/teacher. Often wears a white collar button up shirt. 

He KNOWS he himself is smart (even believes he is special & important). He is very confident & knows his way around situations.

His crazy smirk when he (believes he) win.

Light Yagami/Kira Final Speech

Intention:

There were so many scene I wanted to show but I chose this one because it shows Light's intentions and shows his bipolar side. The scene also shows how much god-like complex Light Yagami has & what Light has done isn't all the wrong & evil he stated. Light's reason was all for the good of humanity but it does make the audience question: What is JUSTICE? 

Subtext:

"I have become JUSTICE"   (I am GOD. What I'm doing is RIGHT)

"WHO ELSE COULD HAVE DONE IT?!"     (No one else is strong enough to challenge & wanting to change our society)

Specificity:

What makes Light Yagami unique is, he is the antagonist instead of the protagonist we follow throughout the series. He has a strong sense of justice and want to change the world for the better but he himself is the antagonist of the story. 

Execution: 

Color & Tone. (Ex: color of his eyes)

Caricature: 

Light's body language was exaggerate to show how passionate and angry he was. The camera angle/dynamics help with the exaggerations too.

Light writing down criminal's names. (information: Light can kill anyone by writing down a person's name with their face in his mind. They will die from a heart attack within 40 sec if the cause of death isn't written down specifically.)

Light laughing evilly as his eyes are glowing red. This is exaggerated as his eyes are originally brown. It is just to show how different he is and has become with his god-like complex.

Extra: if interested knowing further in depth of the character Light Yagami

The Life of Light Yagami

Light Power center & gesture Analysis

Light Power Center Analysis

His power center changed after he finds the death note or when he is angry, showing his bipolar side.

When he realized the power he holds he slouches and exaggerates by bending backward. When he is angry he hovers more often. That's how his posture is like when he is also thinking.

Before this, Light is often standing straight, confident. His power point is probably on the chest.

Power center: Head, chin, shoulder. Slouch posture > over straighten posture

When Light is angry, he hovers more often. That's how his posture is like when he is thinking or is frustrated as well.

 The power center is in his chest. Light Yagami is a confident guy. 

Light Yagami's gesture analysis.

I choose Light's eyes as a gesture because his is very unique when it shown.

This was Light when he himself lost all his memories on being a serial killer (Kira). He was shown truly pure hearted, innocent but still has a strong sense of justice. We can see with his eyes that he is determined. (It even got his arch mimesis 'L' to be confuse) 

Light's eyes are originally brown but throughout the series we can see his eyes turns red. This is to imply Light is not the Light Yagami we knew anymore. His eyes turns red when he is planning a murder or he has already killed someone.

Fun fact: Shinigami (God of Death) are shown to have red eyes. Ryuk the god of death that follows Light around & even told Light that Light would have made a fine God of Death. I believe the red eyes indicate Light is slowly turning into one, whether he likes it or not. 

two examples of other eyes (sinister/evil)