How do you create animation characters in voice over? Easy, it's just 3 steps!

Creating a new unique character when acting for animation or videogames is easy if you follow these three easy steps. Gabby quickly walks you through the 3 top shortcuts to create amazing characters.

How do you create animation characters in voice over? Easy, it's just 3 steps! - 2:54

Hey guys! I get asked a lot about how to create original characters and I realized that I've never actually broken down that process with you... so it seems like a good time to talk about it. I realized that I really haven't given you a breakdown for how to do character work yet on the channel, so I thought we could dive into that today and give you some new techniques. Let's get into it. Ready? Three steps, super easy. Here's what you do. Step number one: choose an emotion. You've heard me talk about this before, you've heard me talk about the use of emoji charts, too, and emotional face wheels, and all those cool therapy tools that help you to really lock into an emotion or an idea. So you start there. Your emotion can be anything, right? It could be grumpy, it could be nervous, it could be shy, it could be happy - take your pick.

Step two: choose an archetype. Archetypes don't have to be crazy specific; they're kind of a broad overview of a character idea. So maybe it's a mom, or maybe it's a boss, or maybe you're playing a superhero or a teacher. Hell, maybe it's the drunk guy at the bar.

Step number three: give them an action. Give them an actionable thing to do, right? So maybe they're running, maybe they're playing make-believe, hell, maybe they're being swallowed whole by a shark, it doesn't matter. But you take these three ideas: emotion, archetype and action, and you can put them on a piece of paper and make up your own list of different combinations to try, and that's really where original characters come from. You pick and choose from those different segments, different areas of the industry, and then throw them all together and see what happens, see what you get. It's a ton of fun, it's basically an improv game that you play yourself, and it really just helps you come up with something that's unique and that's your own, as opposed to trying to mimic somebody else's work, or do an impression, or you know - just copying someone else's character. Hope it helps! Thanks for watching, guys. Hey guys, thanks so much for watching! If you want to be featured on an upcoming Gift of Gab, or you just have a question for me that you'd love for me to answer about voiceover and your voiceover career, send it over! I'm happy to do it. You can email me at gabby@voiceovervixen.com or shoot me a message on one of the socials.

704-674-8294 / GabrielleNistico.com / gabby@voiceovervixen.com

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