How to Make Animated Cartoon Dolls

Animated dolls need to move as their real-life counterparts would to be convincingly differentiated from fully human characters.

One of the main advantages of animation is that it allows for the realization of the impossible. One common archetype is anthropomorphism, or human behaviors in inanimate objects. The movie "Toy Story," which is about toys that took on lives of their own when their owners weren't looking, is a classic example. Since dolls already resemble humans and animation would resemble both, animators need to pay attention to specific movements to communicate the difference. Animated cartoon dolls will need to move like a real doll would move if it had a life of its own.

Things You'll Need

• Image editing program
• Animation program

Instructions

1. Open new image files for each of the separate parts of the doll. Draw a torso and limbs, including the head, plus more if there will be additional joints (for example, a forearm and upper arm if the doll has a movable elbow). Give them bold lines so that they would be obviously separated from each other when assembled. Add details such as the reflection of light on plastic, or roughshod stitching on a raggedy stuffed doll. Draw each piece from multiple angles in separate image files; be sure that if you draw one body part from a certain angle, that you draw every body part at that angle. Erase the basic white color information from the image file backgrounds and save as JPEGs.

2. Import the image files into the animation program. Arrange the torso, head and limbs together on the preview screen, moving them into different positions to match the planned animation action and save these positions as key frames. Always base the movement on the hinge of the limbs to the torso; a doll's head only swivels left and right, so if the character needs to look up it will need to tilt its whole torso back by the hinge of the legs.

3. Activate the between-frames option on the animation program to fill between the key frames. Add background details to scale. Dolls tend to be small, so the environment around them needs to be large by comparison.

References

• "Animation Unleashed," Ellen Besen, 2008