Principles of Animation: Appeal

Appeal is what helps animation characters seem "real" and interesting . It can be likened to "charisma" in an actor. Appeal is not restricted to sympathetic, beautiful characters, or protagonists; villains or monsters should have their own appeal too. The important thing is that the character has its own personality and the viewer is stimulated by it in some way, instead of bored. Appeal can rely on many aspects of animation - story, impressive visuals, sounds and character development, to name a few.

In characters that are intended to seem "good" or likeable, symmetry is often used. This is because we as viewers are often attracted to symmetry and idealised proportions, which make a character seem more "perfect" in our eyes. The same applies to the use of "baby-faces," as we tend to find babies innocent and cute, which adds likeability to a character when used. Disney and anime cartoons that makes use of the "super deformed" style, use of this cute, "baby-face" technique to make viewers feel more sympathetic towards the characters.

However, it is often considered unappealing to use something known as "twins" in an animation, meaning when both arms or legs are doing the same thing, creating a stiff, unnatural position that makes a character seem less "real." Introducing some "noise" to the geometry or design of a character can sometimes add to appeal.

Below: Super-deformed anime style makes characters seem more cute and "appealing" to the audience, as well as gives a more light-hearted, humorous take on emotions:

Lack of "solid drawing" often detracts from appeal, also. A strongly appealing character should have high quality design, drawing, modelling, poses and animation, expressed cleanly and clearly. Anything overly complicated and difficult to read, or clumsy and awkwardly moving lacks appeal to an audience.

Below: Example of a clumsy, unappealing character on the left, and strong but simple appealing characters on the right.

Below is a video I found explaining how to create appeal in a character's posing; although fairly technical I think this is quite helpful as the author talks through his thinking around the character's pose and how he is using it to display a certain emotion.