"Character's you say, eh? Fictional I assume..."

*Grabs the dictionary* okay, c, c, ch....chara, aha! Character, here we go, hmm...... Right it's this one, n. 1 the collective qualities or characteristics, especially mental and moral, that distinguish a person or thing. Basically ask this, what makes a character? Well it's all about body language, and the qualities of a person or object and in the context of animation, it's based on everything with how a person behaves, the way they, walk, talk, the way they retell a situation or story, the body language, the way hand gestures are used, even the way someone looks at you without saying a word, you can immediately associate a word.

A strong, well developed character is something that the audience can easily and quickly read, if this can be done, it creates the most important thing with a character. Believability. Okay so you have a good story, maybe even the next big thing, but it's nothing without great acting. Without a good actor, or as is the case, an animator, the story cannot be read with poor character animation, it isn't about facial emotion, fantastic if you can do that, but without the base of good, well-understood actions, a character won't be believable.

Note to self: Become the character! Get inside the character. What would they be thinking? What do they want? What would they do? Why are they doing it?