Cartoon Animation Tips - How & Where to Begin

Every beginner trying to get into the animation industry must have come across the question, i.e., how and where to begin. Well, in this guide to cartoon animation for beginners, we have tried to cover up all the important things that will be helpful to any individual trying to make animation their career.

Cartoon animations have always been the best visual medium to attract the audience’s attention. These simple figures have not only proved beneficial to the entertainment domain but the professional world as well.

Animated cartoon videos are widely employed by various types of organizations to communicate their messages to the targeted viewers.

This post covers the basics of cartoon animation, benefits, creation steps, and much more. People who are intimidated by the thought of creating cartoon animated art can use it for their reference.

Let’s start with understanding its concept first.

What is a cartoon animation?

Cartoon animation is a type of motion picture, which is usually created by simulating movement in a series of photographs, drawings, or computer graphics with the help of software. The simulation is done by making small progressive modifications in each frame.

Benefits of cartoon animation

The use of animation dates back to the early 1900s. It has been used in various forms, out of which cartoon arts have gained more popularity.

Back then, it was only used in movies for entertainment. However, today, it is being employed by every other industry for a variety of purposes.

The growing popularity of cartoon animated content is mainly due to the various benefits it provides. Some of them are

• It is great at attracting the audience’s attention, be it young or old.
• It helps in increasing the engagement rate with the audience.
• It gives context to the ideas, which is practically impossible to implement in real life.
• It can bring the concepts to life, no matter how complex they are.
• It is not constrained by factors like props, location, equipment, actors, etc.
• It inspires customers to purchase, thereby increasing business conversion rates.
• It helps businesses to stand out in the competition.

How to create cartoon animations?

Unlike other forms of visual media, cartoons are not found in real life. That is why an animator is solely responsible for creating it by drawing and rendering them on the computer.

The cartoon animator either draws the visual aspects frame by frame or figures out the movements and renders animated content with the help of specialized software. The former animating style is known as 2D animation while the latter is known as 3D animation.

However, for creating 3D animated cartoons, the animators need to work in teams to develop their full-fledged features.

Here are a few steps you can follow to create your own animated cartoon content. The steps mentioned are pretty much the same for any cartoon animation software.

1. Step 1: Use a cartoon animation maker of your choice.

   Choose powerful cartoon animation software, free or paid, as per your needs. Most of the animated video creation tools are cloud-based. So, downloading is not compulsory. You only need an active internet connection and a web browser.

2. Step 2: Select the desired template or scene to animate.

   If you already have an animated scene, it is well and good. However, if you do have it, you can choose templates from the animation makers. You can also employ the program to build scenes on the black canvas.

3. Step 3: Go to the library containing various graphical and media objects.

   Several animation makers are easy to use. It helps beginners to get started with creating animated cartoon content.

   The software usually possesses a graphics library containing both free and paid images, videos, and sounds to use in the content.

4. Step 4: Drag and drop the desired objects or graphical elements on your screen.

   Now, drag and drop the desired files from the library. You can compose the animated content in any style you like. You only need to arrange and modify the content according to your needs.

5. Step 5: Animate and synchronize objects as per your needs.

   Once you have dropped the desired objects on your scene, it’s time to start animating. You can change anything you want in the scenes like text, illustration, sound, music, colors, size, timing, etc.

   Decide how the cartoon image or video should appear, disappear, rotate, move, etc. You will also get a range of animation effects to choose from. For example, pop, zoom, fly, move, fade, wedge, bounce, slide, etc.

6. Step 6: Add voice-over or music that suits the theme.

   While choosing the voice-over or music, make sure that the track accurately reflects the mood of your content. To make the video further interesting, you can also add supporting sounds, such as applause, ticking clock, explosion, etc.

   One small tip is to use royalty-free music or else you will end up fighting the legal battle.

7. Step 7: Download and share your content.

   Now that your animation is created, you can download and share it among your targeted audience.

Conclusion

Learning animation is easier but it can be tough to master. It is also quite common to make mistakes in the beginning phases. So, you need to practice dedicatedly if you wish to create professional cartoon animated art.

However, if you are working on an important project, you can use a little help from the companies offering animation services.

Start with something small and simple, and you will eventually get there. Meanwhile, if there’s an important project coming up, rely on the cartoon animation service providers for the job.