Animated characters are the colorful and eye-catching portrayal of either real life or imaginary people. With years of evolution in terms of technology and technique, animation has covered a vast domain of real-world applications.
Other than highlighting your work with a creative aspect and making it easily understandable, it can also be used for advertising, business, marketing, and education.
Nowadays, you can design a cartoon character even if you’re a rookie, as there are many easy ways to do so. In this blog, we’ve mentioned the 6 best ways to make a cartoon character online. Read on!
6 Best Ways to Make a Cartoon Character
1. Online Animation Cartoon Character Makers
If you’re looking for a quick way to make animated characters, then the following online character makers will be able to ease your work, loaded with all the features you may need.
Doratoon
In case you want a user-friendly tool to design animation cartoon characters, then Doratoon can stop your search. It has a vast range of features and tools dedicated to character making available online for beginners and professionals.
With Doratoon, you can create customized animations on millions of stock footage, templates, backgrounds, etc.
Features
• A free-to-use inventory filled with props, characters, and other media
• Simple and smooth user interface specifically ideal for beginners
• Ready to use templates and elements
• AI drawing features for quickly transforming your thoughts into a character
• AI dub tech for adding your sound effects or narration to your animation
Animaker
Animaker is known as a feature-enriched animated character creator that covers thousands of different powerful tools.
They’ve claimed it to be a perfect start for beginners and non-designers stepping into the field of animation. You can also record and edit live-action, capturing every moment of your life. Also, ready-made templates and props are accessible here!
Features
• Drag and drop character builder
• 6 different video styles for animations to pick the one suited for your video dynamics ● No credit card or payment requirements to start the procedure
• More than 200 voices and sound effects
Powtoon
For those who want a professional touch-up to their ordinary cartoon videos, Powtoon can help you level up. Moreover, you can easily make quality animation and design a variety of cartoon characters without taking away your personal touch.
Furthermore, with this platform, sharing the final result in different formats directly to gallery or social media is possible.
Features
• Gallery of video templates in different categories
• Customization options with background, sound, characters, etc.
• Integration with Photoshop, allowing you to import and edit PSD files
• You can create whiteboard animation
Biteable
Biteable helps you create complex animated movie characters easily in a matter of seconds. It is an easy-to-use character builder with drag and drop features to add anything anywhere.
Besides, it is specifically designed for people who don’t have time to make efforts to animate from scratch or don’t know how to start. This application can be availed free with limited options and paid subscriptions for professionals.
Features
• Simple character-building options
• Choose a template for thousands of different designs
• Make your own template with diverse editing options
• Add snippets, diagrams, charts, sound, and more
Vyond
Another popular cartoon character creator on our list is Vyond, known to be the oldest app in its niche.
With such experience, this user-friendly app has a firm grasp on its features, offering customizable options to take your character up a notch.
Additionally, you can even animate your personalized cartoon videos for up to 120 minutes. As compared to the other apps on our list, Vyond stands on the pricey side.
Features
• Automatic character syncing features for adding a touch of reality to your videos
• Create cartoons and videos on any topic with ready-to-use templates
Doodly
Doodly is the whiteboard animation tool allowing its users to design artsy doodles in a professional style and integrate it into videos with special SmartDraw technology.
Moreover, it offers simple drag and drop features from which you can choose an existing image to modify or create your own character.
Features
• The point-and-click feature has thousands of existing images, props, elements, and templates
• The Rainbow feature makes all the colors brighter
• Doodly dashboard can organize multiple projects at a time
• Saving time with the alignment feature where you can several elements at once and align them all together on canvas
2. Using Avatar Builders to Make Your Own Cartoon Character
Now that you know all about online cartoon character makers, you’ll be amazed that some applications are letting you digitize yourself and turn into a cartoon character.
Also, you can use them in your chats, growing follower base, or giving a unique touch to your personal brand.
Some of these avatar builders are mentioned as follows:
Adobe Express
Adobe Express is an Adobe-based app known for its wide range of tools to create realistic avatars. You can transform yourself into a cartoon using color adjustments, appearance, and clothes and customize them according to your desired look. It also allows you to share your avatar to any digital platform directly.
Bitmoji
Amongst some popularly used apps for avatars, Bitmoji starts out, especially for photographers and animators. You can use it to turn yourself into a 3D character by molding its clothes, style, looks, accessories, and even expressions.
After creating your avatar, you’ll have different emojis and stickers dedicated to every moment. You can easily import your avatar and also turn it into photos.
Zmoji
Another avatar builder ideal for designing, adjusting, and customizing your own features and elements according to your perspective. It works solely on your creative skills and imagination. You can create whatever you like and use it in your chats, such as GIFs and social apps.
3. Design a Cartoon Character by Drawing
You can even design a cartoon character by drawing the origin of every classic character, from Mickey Mouse to Bugs Bunny, starting from a mere piece of doodle.
It is possible to make your personalized character with just a pen and paper or with a graphic tablet and stylist. Although all these remarkable cartoon characters in advertisements and movies look simple, it takes a vast skill set and dedication to make them influential in marking your memories.
4. Outsource to Create Animated Movie Characters
If you want to create a flawless cartoon, handing the task to professionals would be wise as they can give your ideas a better sense of direction than a layman.
The trickiest part is to get the best person for the job which you can analyze from their previous work. Those with ample budget and time in their hands to get the finest results can hire freelance animators and cartoonists to get the job done.
5. Make a Cartoon Character from Photo
Most animators want to give their real-life images an animated twist. For this reason, many applications and software are designed to turn any existing photos into cartoons. You must import a photo from your gallery to animate; the app can give you the final results in seconds.
Some of these apps are Artisto, ToonMe App, Sketch Me, etc. On these apps, you can go for cartoonizer and sketcher features and even adjust colors with hundreds of filters and effects. Features, such as crop, resize, or modify the image and remove the background are easily accessible to beautify your cartoon.
6. Modify Some Existing Cartoon Character
If you are among those who want to polish their illustrative skills, then the best way is to select any existing animated movie/fictional characters and modify them as per your own imagination and creative end. You can pick out any vector image of that particular cartoon and customize it with either paid or free software.
Conclusion
As we’ve reached the end, you must know all the possible ways of creating cartoon characters, whether you’re looking to digitize yourself or animate an original idea.
Although you can choose any of the above-described ways according to your requirements, according to our analysis, the best way among them is using online character makers like Doratoon. It offers simple and user-friendly options that make it easy for a beginner to start their animation journey.
