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Character Development

When creating and preparing characters to animate it is important to follow some simple guidelines. You will want to start with the body or head probably. Convert it into a symbol and title it appropriately. Create a new layer for the next body part, draw it, and convert it into a symbol. Repeat the process until the character is finished. Now put all symbols on one layer to form the character. Select the whole character and convert it into a symbol calling it "character's name -whole character".

Criteria

Character should be all original and unique.
Characters should have 3 or more appendages prepared to animate by converting to symbols.
All symbols should be titled appropriately with character name and body part such as : "Smiley-rightleg"
Your character should be solid with no transparent parts. Make sure you paint the eyes white!
Your completed character should be converted as a symbol and be on the stage as one symbol.

Character parts for ideas and reference here.

Character packs here (includes individual character parts).

Students create characters from scratch using Adobe Flash such as the below examples.
Here's a website with examples of Flash characters. Go to the character design link to see animated characters.

Several tutorials below show the process for creating such characters.

To make the head animate for later it's best to follow some rules. Here's a tutorial to follow.

"Flash Characters" - click on link for full screen view

3D Heads - click on link for full screen view

Faces - click on link for full screen view


Hands - click on link for full screen view

Character stances

Tutorials in Adobe Illustrator that you can create characters in Illustrator and then animate in Flash.