Peak into My process 

Sketchy Start

Usually my final sketch (right) will end up looking very different from the initial sketch (left). Its basically just a refinement process of redrawing the same character over and over until its at a point you are satisfied with. 

Once I have a sketch that I like, I sometimes will clean it up in Adobe fresco because I like to use their vector brush tools. I like these brushes for two reasons: I erasing overlapping lines makes tracing really easy. I like to clean up the sketch to get it close to what it will look like in After Effects. This stage allows me to play around with colors.  

Makeing characters look Rig-diculous

Once I have a clean drawing, than I will build it out in Adobe illustrator so that it looks similar to my drawing and it is compatible with rigging. You could skip illustrator and build the artwork directly in After Effects, but I find that I can work faster and more efficiently in Illustrator.

I almost always build out the 3/4 perspective by default. However, if it is a character that I may need to use in several "scenes" I will go ahead and build out a simplified character sheet with different perspectives. Building out these different perspectives is mostly helping me work out how to draw the torso and head from the different angles. The legs and arms can mostly be reused in the different perspectives. 

Prepping the Limbs

Here is how I have broken up the arms on this particular character to prepare it for rigging with Limber 2. Every part of the limb is built around circular joints. 

Each joint will be on its own layer in After Effects, and all the shapes that make the upper part of the limb will be on 1 shape layer. The same will be the case for all the shapes that make up the lower part of the limb. 

Stay Limber

Once in AE, I'll use the circle limb type in Limber 2 to rig my limb artwork into a functioning bendy limb. 

Then the rest is history

Once all four limbs are rigged up, I parent them to the torso and start animating. I seriously love how fast and easy Limber 2 makes the rigging process. 

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