How Are Characters Created in Traditional Animation?

Animation has come a long way since its birth many years ago. In the past, animators and producers drew their characters by hand, using simple drawing boards to create their characters. To create an animated effect, they would film them frame-by-frame. Some had to rely on copying real life to help their animations work, like in the classic Snow White Disney film, which featured live-action footage traced over with animation, a process known as rotoscoping.

Today, technology has changed the process but has still kept the main idea the same.

Software like After Effects, Photoshop, and others allow animation production companies to create characters however they please and animate them in whatever way they wish. The process involves drawing out the character’s form on the screen with the tools provided — the characters can be stick figures, block shaped, anthropomorphic, or whatever the artist desires.
The artist can then add several anchor points or joints onto the character, giving the character the ability to ‘move’ or animate. Without these points, a character will be still unless the entire body is moved. These points, of course, need to be moved precisely in order to get the proper motions, but software has made this process easy for producers at well-equipped animation production companies. Technology has helped remove the need for other factors to create life-like movements, though rotoscoping is still a viable method.

There are many settings and features in the different types of software that allow producers to add colors, background effects, changing expressions, and subtle design elements like shadows. Not all tools are single-purposed, and different effects can be added by using these tools in unique ways, such as the motion tools. Some programs make this type of creativity easy while others are a little more complex.

Technology has made character creation much more efficient for animators and animation production studios. The various software and applications available to animation production studios allow animators to carefully create their characters with fine detail free from the limitations of paper and pencil.