It is becoming easier to create animations that have the chance to capture thousands of viewers. If you have a passion for creating content and the drive to learn the tools of the trade, you can make animated cartoons no matter your current skill level. With the proliferation of social media, distributing your cartoons is also incredibly simple. If you’re interested in learning more, read on to find tips for making your own animated cartoons.
Brainstorm Your Concept
When we are venturing into creative projects, it’s easy to want to dive right in. However, it’s essential to slow down your process and map out what you want to do before you begin animating. First, figure out your video’s goal, target audience, and central message. Then write out your script that you will use to reference every decision you make inside your chosen software. Pay special attention to your characters, as the right character design will make your cartoon stand out.
Understand Your Goals
You want to set realistic goals before you get to work on your cartoon. If you aim to pitch your cartoon to a network as a TV show, you’ll need to make sure you can create between 11- and 25-minutes’ worth of content and even longer for movies. Also, if you’re a beginner, you should stay away from more complicated ideas that require complex animations. Start with more manageable projects and work your way up to where you feel comfortable doing various animations in your software.
Make the Storyboards Simple
A storyboard is like comic book panels for your animated video. Its goal is to aid you in structuring your video into scenes. Many people might assume that only a gifted artist can make storyboards, but this is not the case. Knives Out director Rian John released the storyboards for his move, which were little more than stick figures. You can successfully grasp the intention of a scene from your storyboard, even if it’s not a great drawing.
Learn the Software
One of the best and most essential tips for making your own animated cartoons is to learn the fundamentals of animation tools. If you don’t have any animation experience, take some time to learn from online courses, videos, and practice projects to give yourself an understanding of the basics. There are free and open-source apps like Blender that allow you to practice the craft before spending money on premium software such as Adobe Character Creator. Suppose you want to create quick animations without investing much time. In that case, apps like Animaker will let you use preset animations and guide you step-by-step on making short videos.
Learning how to make your animations can seem daunting at first, but the more time you put into the craft, the better you will become. If you work hard enough, maybe someday you will create the next cartoon that millions of people adore.
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