How Does an Animator Spend a Workday?
One of the ways an animator spends his day is in character design. Character design is crucially important to an animation project, especially at the beginning phases. Character design allows an animation company to choose the look and feel of a character, as well as address issues like facial expressions, clothing, body type and size. It's important to have these concepts ironed out before any animation begins, because they dictate how the animation itself will flow. Heavy characters will move with award and slow motions. Evil characters may have a flamboyant scowl or grimace that must be taken into account.
Another typical job of an animator is to construct storyboards for the cartoon or film. Storyboards are visual representations of the action in the story at key points. This helps the rest of the animators envision the steps needed to get to each key point, as well as how to structure the pictures in terms of composition and camera angles. For example, if a storyboard shows a main character holding a sword aloft over his head, the animators know that they will have to animate the character grabbing the sword, turning it upright and lifting it above his head.
Doing pencil roughs of animation is also an important part of an animator's day. These are multiple sheets of paper laid one on top of the other that the animator uses to draw a rough picture of each stage of animation. For instance, if a segment calls for a character to throw a punch at another character, the pencil roughs will show the character getting ready to punch on one page, and then each step in subsequent pages--so that, when someone flips through, she can see the animation taking place.
Cell painting usually takes place in the final stages of animation, and can take a lengthy amount of time. Each frame of animation must be individually painted in crisp and clean colors by a cell painter. That way, when the cells are photographed, the animation comes to life in beautifully hand-painted cell. Today, cell painting can be done digitally, which saves on both space and time.
