Animation Character Sheet/Character Breakdown Basics

Meet Vin. Vin is a character that I intend to animate, and as a result I’ve done a character sheet/character breakdown for him. Character sheets let you create a reference for your character, covering the basic views and making sure that your proportions match from drawing to drawing. It’s good practice for keeping things in proportion (even if your proportions include a tendency to freakishly long limbs, like mine) and getting used to drawing your character’s facial expressions.

This character sheet is a simplified breakdown of more detailed character concept art; you need to reduce your character to as few lines as possible. For an idea of how to do that and why it’s necessary, take a look at the lesson on building an animation-ready character from the ground up.

This is just a basic example character sheet, with the very minimum for the sake of demonstration. Before animating, you should try to build a larger sheet with more detail for your character.

In the next few steps, we’ll take a closer look at the various breakdown poses.