How To Simplify Your Illustrative Characters For Animation

Creating complex characters with intricate clothing and patterns can be fun, but it poses challenges when it comes to animating them, especially in full-length animations. To maintain the animator's sanity and ensure a consistent workflow, webcomic characters, which are often based on anime designs, need to be simplified. If you have an illustrative style or a background in more complicated designs, animating your characters can become tedious due to their level of detail. The best solution is to simplify them. This class focuses on teaching you how to simplify a character, even reducing it to its most basic form and shape. The goal is to find a balance between simplicity and complexity that doesn't alter the character too much while minimizing the number of pencil strokes required. Although this class is specifically presented in the context of 2D Character Design, the techniques and ideas can be applied to other forms of animation such as Digital Animation, Stop Motion, and CG Animation. To get started, it is recommended to use simple printing paper and a pen. However, you can choose any drawing medium you are comfortable with and take as much time as needed to complete the project.