Your budget might be limited, but chances are, your imagination and your talent are not. When brainstorming a new idea for a cartoon, keep in mind how much you can afford to invest in the process and what your artistic skill is capable of producing. Your animating skills may need to be refined and practiced more before you are ready to tackle a project of that size. A claymation cartoon with two dozen characters and four sets will require more supplies than a cel animation with only one scene. If budget is an issue, keep it short and simple. The right length for your cartoon will vary based on the market you are trying to distribute it in. Knowing the length from the start will help you brainstorm a story that can fit within that time frame. Creating anything longer may turn people away from viewing it. Know your intended audience. Even though cartoons are traditionally aimed at kids, there are many cartoons made for older adolescents and adults. The age group and other audience demographics should shape the ideas you come up with. If a young audience is your target, you would be better off choosing a topic that is a little simpler to understand and more concrete. Work from your experiences. Make a list of possible life events you have been through that could be the underlying idea behind a cartoon. Of course, there are many plots that do not involve any trace of life experience. You can use your interests and your imagination to craft an entirely new premise, as long as you include enough relatable details to help people connect to the characters or the story. For example, most people can relate to a coming-of-age story, regardless of whether that story takes place in the contemporary real world, in a futuristic space-age setting, or in a sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting. Design an appealing protagonist. Make a list of character traits you would like to see in a protagonist. Write positive features as well as faults to avoid making a character too perfect. While a character in a longer, more serious cartoon will need to develop more, a short, funny cartoon will need a protagonist with a clear goal and clear character traits that allow him or her to react to the conflict in whatever way he or she does. Write a script if there is any dialog. If any of the characters in your cartoon will have spoken lines, you will need a voice actor to recite those lines, and your voice actor will need a written script so that he or she knows what needs to be said. The mouth moves in different ways for different phonemes, and you will need to animate these different mouth movements in a believable way so that any voice overs you add later will match them. Jot down a basic narrative of events. If there is no dialog in the cartoon, you might be able to skip a formal script. You should still write down a basic narrative of events so that you can keep track of the story and its different pieces, though. Write your first draft, set it aside, and come back to it in a day or two to see how you can improve upon it and make it flow more effectively. Sketch out each major change in action. When you sketch out a formal storyboard, each major change in action should be shown in one of the storyboard squares. Minor changes should be described, but may not need to be drawn out. A storyboard should be fairly basic. Try your hand at cel animation. Cel animation is the traditional method of making a cartoon. You will need to hand draw each cel or sheet of animation and take pictures of those cels with a special camera. A series of drawings is produced, and each image varies slightly from the next. When displayed in rapid succession, the differences create the illusion of movement. Use stop motion techniques. Stop motion is another traditional form of animation, but it is used less commonly than cel animation. Take a photograph of each movement after making it. When viewed in this manner, the eye will perceive movement. Consider 2D computer animation. You will need a special computer program for this type of animation, and the product will likely look like a smoother version of a cartoon animated with cel animation. Animate in 3D using computers. As with 2D animation, you will need special software to produce 3D animated cartoons, as well. Examples include Maya and 3D Studio Max. Get the right equipment. You will need a good microphone and a way to prevent echo or background noise from bleeding into the sound you want to keep. Record your own sound effects. Get creative and look for simple, everyday ways to make noises passably similar to the noises you need for your cartoon. Be creative and thorough, including everything from the obvious explosions, alarm clocks to the less obvious footsteps, background noise. If you do not have access to the equipment or otherwise find it impossible to make your own, there are CD-ROMS and websites offering royalty-free pre-record sounds you can use as desired, and this might be a more viable option for you. Even if something is free to download, it may not be free to use, especially for commercial purposes. It is very important that you know what you are permitted to do before you use a sound for your cartoon. Record real voices, if necessary. If your cartoon has dialog in it, you or others you know will need to be the voice bringing your characters to life. As you record your lines, read from the script using appropriate intonation and expression, and make sure that you match your lips to the animated lips of the cartoon. If you have fewer voice actors than characters, you can change the voice of one character simply by adjusting the attributes of the voice sample you already gathered. You will need to invest in special audio editing software to do this, but depending on which one you use, you can likely change the pitch and add overtones, like metallic garbles, to the voice recording. Approach a distribution company, animation company, or TV station. If you created a pilot episode for a cartoon at home, you can spread word for it through either route. If accepted, you will need to figure out your new production schedule for future cartoons so that you can get to work all over again. If they decide to represent your cartoon, you will be given a distribution plan and revenue projection. Ask for a formal letter of interest at this point and show the letter to potential investors to let them know that a distributor will be willing to represent your cartoon. Go find a producer, illustrator, and animator who would be willing to listen to you. Then find a whole lot of money with which you could fund it. Also, be patient, because it could take years before a final product can be shown. Next, create a storyboard with the main plot elements and basic drawings for each major plot development or character introduction. Then, animate scenes in your cartoon using hand drawn at cel animation, stop motion, or computer animation. Once the cartoon is animated, record sound effects to add in or download free pre-recorded sounds online.
