After a general overview of the animation industry, I focused my research on three core roles: Animator, Storyboard Artist, and Character Designer. These positions correspond to the main stages of production—movement performance, storytelling structure, and visual identity—and together shape a project’s emotional tone and narrative coherence.
I plan to draw on interviews with experienced professionals and observe how they approach their work within the industry.
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Animator
Animators make character designs move convincingly and expressively, translating design into performance under the direction of leads and directors. (For industry job descriptions that specify these expectations—including requirements to understand rhythm, weight and to collaborate with programmers and designers—see Creative Assembly’s animator/technical-animator postings.)
Working as an animator in games often requires fluency with industry tools such as Autodesk Maya and MotionBuilder, and in 2D pipelines tools like TVPaint—these are standard in many studios’ toolsets.
- https://www.autodesk.com/uk/products/maya/overview
- https://www.autodesk.com/products/motionbuilder/overview
- https://tvpaint.com/en
Experienced practitioners and tutors stress that the heart of good animation is not simply “beautiful motion” but making a character feel real through careful timing, weight and spacing—points emphasized in Scott T. Petersen’s professional animation training materials.
- https://www.scotttpetersenanimation.com/animation-training-dvds
In practice, animators also confront technical constraints—unstable frame rates, engine limitations and inconsistent poses—which means continual technical learning and clear communication with programmers and designers are vital to keep a shot playable and expressive in production.
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Storyboard Artist
Storyboard artists translate scripts into a visual blueprint that determines pacing, camera behaviour, shot composition and the emotional beats of a scene. (Framestore and other VFX/animation houses describe storyboarding as the point where cinematic knowledge, composition skills and story logic converge.)
- https://www.framestore.com/careers
In published interviews, professional story artists explain their role as the bridge between director and production: they must convert written beats into readable images while keeping technical feasibility in mind. For example, Eva Bruschi (Sony Pictures Animation) describes how story artists “translate words into images,” discussing composition, acting and camera thinking in her interview.
- https://blog.animschool.edu/2018/03/23/3d-animation-interview-sony-pictures-story-artist-eva-bruschi/
Similarly, Joe (Joseph) Castillon stresses the value of planning and pre-visualization to avoid confusion later in production; his interviews and portfolio notes highlight iteration, thumbnails and pitching multiple versions as core workflow habits.
- https://www.vfx2go.com/blog-archive/josep-castillon
- https://www.joecastillon.com/
Storyboard artists commonly use Photoshop (or Toon Boom Storyboard Pro) to sketch, sequence and time shots—software that studios widely recommend for pre-production work.
- https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop.html
- https://www.toonboom.com/products/storyboard-pro
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Character Designer
Character designers establish a project’s visual identity by creating figures that read clearly on screen and support believable motion. Major studios (and specialist houses) emphasize that character design must balance stylistic unity, emotional clarity and technical practicality. (Framestore/Aardman style and careers pages illustrate how design and production constraints interact in real projects.)
- https://www.framestore.com/careers
- https://www.aardman.com/careers/
Designers like Adrian Grajdeanu describe their process as starting from who the character is—the backstory and personality—and then refining shape, color and costume so the design both reads emotionally and performs technically, which mirrors standard guidance in industry interviews.
- https://talkillustration.com/interview-character-designer-adrian-grajdeanu/
For interactive media such as games, character designers must also consider rigging compatibility, animation readability and on-screen silhouette—factors that influence choices in proportion, topology and costume detail. Practical toolsets for character concept work include Photoshop, Procreate, and Clip Studio Paint.
- https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop.html
- https://procreate.com/
- https://www.clipstudio.net/en/
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Summary
Animators supply timing, weight and expressive motion; storyboard artists define cinematic flow and camera logic; character designers build the visual language that supports both performance and story. Modern animation production asks practitioners across these roles to combine strong artistic foundations with technical fluency, teamwork and a habit of ongoing learning—points supported by studio job descriptions and first-hand interviews referenced above.
