Expressive Techniques for Character Animation (Técnicas de expresión para animación de personajes – Spanish, Eng sub)

Turn your characters into great actors by transferring your emotions to them and create animated scenes full of life
In character animation, it is very important to make the characters feel alive, otherwise they would just be moving shapes. This is the opinion of graphic designer and 2D animator Memé Candia, who has worked bringing campaigns to life for brands such as Disney XD, Cartoon Network and Coca-Cola, among others.

In this course, Memé will teach you to master the expressions of your animated characters, applying acting techniques, to create scenes full of emotion and realism. At the end, you will know how to turn your designs into great actors by transferring your feelings to them and helping them to discover their thousand and one faces.

What will you learn in this online course?
The project for this course will be to create an animated scene that brings a character to life by applying the acting techniques and principles learned throughout the course. The scene will be based on a selected audio clip that meets specific characteristics, such as having clear vocalization and expressive dialogue.

The course will start with getting to know me, Memé Candia, your instructor. I will share my training, experiences, and latest work, as well as my influences throughout my career and how they have enriched my projects. We will then dive into the course content, which will be divided into units.

In the first unit, we will focus on selecting the appropriate audio clip for the project, and understanding the importance of giving context to the character. We will study the character’s verbal and body communication, and work on the final design, visualizing all its angles and creating poses that convey the character’s personality.

Next, we will move on to studying the gestures and movements of the character by filming ourselves interpreting the selected audio clip. We will identify the key points or key frames of each movement, and learn how to structure the scene and work on the vocalization to bring the character to life.

Once the animation is completed, we will move on to the process of cleaning up the frames, going through each drawing of the clip to ensure smooth and fluid animation. In the last unit, we will learn how to render the animation and analyze it critically to draw conclusions about its strengths and areas for improvement.

Finally, I will provide tips on how to create a reel with your completed work, which can be included in your portfolio and presented to studios as a showcase of your skills and talent.

Throughout the course, we will be applying acting techniques, studying facial expressions, body language, storytelling, animation principles, and more, to create animated scenes that are full of life and emotion. Get ready to unleash your creativity and bring your characters to life through the art of character animation!

This online course is designed for animators, illustrators, designers, or anyone who is starting out in animation and wants to learn how to give expressions to their characters. It is suitable for those who already have a basic knowledge of animation and some previous experience in drawing characters.

To take this course, you will need a camera to film yourself interpreting the selected audio clip, a graphic tablet to create your character designs, and an animation program that allows you to draw freehand, sequence images, and import audio. This can be any animation software that you are familiar with and comfortable using for creating animations.

The course will focus on applying acting techniques and principles to bring characters to life, so a basic understanding of animation concepts and character design will be helpful. This course will provide guidance on how to create expressive characters and animate them effectively, using your artistic skills and creativity.