Creating 2D Characters for Cartoon Animator 4

There are many different types of characters in Cartoon Animator 4, and it is important to know these different types before you start creating your characters.

In this video I go over the different character types.

It is very important for you to know your characters before you start creating them. You want your character to tell the viewer more about the them and their personality.

Create a character profile for your character before you start creating them. You can find a Character Profile PDF document below which you can download and complete. This will help you understand your character much better and will set you in the right direction when you start designing your character.

It is important to look for some inspiration before creating your character. You don't want to copy someone else's work, but you want to get ideas on outfits and designs to get your creative juices flowing.

So you have created your character profile and you have searched the internet for some inspiration. Now it is time to start sketching out your first draft of your character.

So let's get going...

There are two different ways to create characters in Cartoon Animator 4. The first method is by linking your graphics software to Cartoon Animator 4 and simply edit or create PDS files. And the second method is to create your characters inside your graphics software and export all the different sprites as transparent PNG files, and then import them into CTA4.

A crucial part of creating your character is to make sure that you have your folders setup correctly inside your graphics software. In this lesson I show you an easy way to setup your projects correctly.

The best thing to do is to create a base character first. A base character is your "template" that you can create multiple different characters of in the future.

To complete your base character it is time to add the different sprites for your eyes, mouth and hands. In this lesson we start with the eye sprites.

The eye sprites are done and next up we create the different mouth sprites. In this lesson I will create 2 mouth sprites, but if you have set up your project like I have teached you, you will know exactly what mouth sprites you need to create.

In this lesson we will be creating the hand sprites. Hands can be very difficult to draw, so always try and work from a reference if you can.

One awesome feature that comes with Cartoon Animator 4 is the 360° head functionality. This means you can create amazing looking animations with your characters.

In this lesson I briefly go over how you can create 360° heads in your workflow, and then how to adjust your positioning of your sprites in CTA4 for realistic head movements.

Your base character is now complete and it is time to save it so you can use it over and over again in the future to create new characters.

Talking about creating new characters, in this lesson we can start creating our character on top of our base character.

Remember you can download the final character that was created in this course below.

A crucial part of creating a 2D character is to rig it correctly. If you don't get this part right, your character won't animate correctly.

In this lesson I go over the process of setting up your pivot points.

Once your character is complete, it is time to import it into Cartoon Animator 4.

It is very important to test your character and to make sure everything works correctly. Fix any issues and make adjustments where needed early.

There will come a time during animation that you will need more hand, eye or mouth sprites. In this lesson I will show you exactly how you can add more sprites to your character.

And this concludes this online. Thank you for taking this course and I can't wait to see you characters.

Happy animating.