Personal
2020-ongoing
Character Lab
Character Lab is an ongoing personal series where I design characters, rig them in After Effects and make them move. Head rigs, run cycles and more.
Role
Concept, Character Design, Illustration, Rigging, Animation
Platform
Year
2020-ongoing
Timeline
N/A
Overview
The Brief
Learning complex things takes practice over time. Character animation pulls together design, illustration, rigging and animation, and each skill fades if I leave it alone. I started Heads and Run as a way to keep the whole pipeline fresh and build muscle memory. I also wanted it to stay fun, so I kept the stakes low and the ideas varied.
work
The Work
Heads and Run is a personal series of character illustration and animation studies. There are five pieces so far, split between head rig animations and running rig animations. Each one is a new character I designed from scratch, based on visual references. The designs change from piece to piece. The method stays the same.
For every piece I handle the full chain myself: concept, character design, illustration, rig and animation. The head studies focus on how a face and skull move when rigged. The run studies focus on weight, timing and cycle. Different characters, same fundamentals, repeated.
The series is open ended. I add to it whenever I want to practise something or test an idea, and it works as a running record of how my character work develops.
Process
The Stages
Stage 1: Research and mood board
Every piece starts with a concept. I gather visual references, build a mood board and settle on the idea before I draw anything. This keeps each character from becoming a copy of its references.
Stage 2: Sketch
I sketch the character on paper or tablet until the shapes and personality work. This is where the design gets decided, so the later stages stay about execution.
Stage 3: Illustration
I redraw the final sketch in Illustrator, building the character in clean vector parts that are ready to be rigged.
Stage 4: Rig and animate
I import the artwork into After Effects and rig it. I have been using Limber, Joystick ‘n Sliders and Duik Angela, and I rotate between them on purpose. The aim is to learn what each one does well and which fits how I work. Then I animate the head turn or the run cycle.
Outcome
What it Did
Five finished character animations covering head rigs and run cycles
A repeatable workflow from reference to final animation
Hands-on comparison of three After Effects rigging tools
A growing body of work that keeps adding to my character design and animation portfolio
Next up: a series of horror characters
Outcome
Tools
After Effects
Illustrator
Procreate
