For those who have experience with 2d or 3d animation, giving details to a character is no easy task. The purpose behind any character animation activity is to ensure that as much detail is given so as to captivate viewers. Animators need to pay close attention to body movements, expressions, and visual effects that can accurately capture what the character is thinking, feeling, or doing.

More importantly, they need to give importance to subtle details that add realism to a character and ensure it behaves accordingly with different scenes. If you are wondering how to avoid the basic errors in character animation design, the following are a few considerations you need to pay attention to for better character animation.

Think of sound for natural timing

Sound is usually not the first thing that crosses the mind when aiming to improve the quality of character animations. However, without it, you will end up designing character movements that are not in tune with sound effects for a particular scene. The sound for character animation is only important for ensuring it naturally flows with the movements, but also for accurately reflecting the actions of the character.

When the character claps, the sound should give off a clapping noise and not a loud bang, for example. If the character is running in the rain, the sound should resemble a small splashing noise. To pull this off accurately, you must have a general idea about the sound prior to creating a scene. So if the character is going to hit a brick wall, your idea of the sound should dictate how the scene should be made. This will ensure that the timing of the movements accurately reflects the sound.

Cover some aspects of the character

Covering some parts of the character is also useful for enhancing the look of movements. This is important as it helps to emphasize details on specific areas of the body and gives a much more organic feel to the scene.

For example, if you want your character to dive into a swimming pool, you should opt for a layered approach by showing the movement one frame at a time. This would involve hiding the legs and giving focus to the head, arms, and torso when making the jump. Once these body areas have been polished, you can bring the focus back to the legs for accurate timing for the polishing phase.

This is an effective approach to follow to show fluidity in your animations and make the process of animating complex movements a lot simpler.

Focus on quality instead of quantity

You may think you might not get a lot done in a short animation, but giving priority to details instead of the length of time of the animation is a great way to polish your animation skills. Start with a 10 second frame and identify areas that can be enhanced through better lighting and camera effects, shadows, and color variations. Following this approach will equip you with a range of skills and cultivate a certain thought-process that needs to be maintained for creating quality character animations.