The Emmy-award-winning Adobe Character Animator has grown popular in the last few years ever since it launched in 2015. Especially now, when the software matured in its Version 22.1 from December 2021, people can’t get enough of these lovely easy-to-control and follow motions lipsynched puppet characters. With no further ado, today we intend to have fun and bring you great time and inspiration. Let’s see these puppets in action in the following 30 Adobe Character Animator examples.
The videos showcase the software possibilities and the instances where you can have great use of puppet characters. From commercials to podcasts and live streams, to fun memes and animated videos. People were definitely having lots of fun making these so we hope you’ll have a great time too.
Related: Do you know that you can officially get Adobe Character Animator for free? Learn more about the free options.
Article overview:
1. Explainer video examples
2. Commercials examples
3. Campaign videos examples
4. Music Video examples
5. Channel Message examples
6. Kids series examples
7. Broadcasts and commentaries examples
8. Web and TV-series examples
9. Funny videos and personal projects examples
Explainer Video Examples
Same as for broadcasting and live shows, puppets are very convenient to follow your movements and lipsync your narration. In this case, they work ideally for explanation videos.
1. Game Subscriptions Are the Future
An animated look at why the future of video games is subscriptions. This a perfect example for commercial usage and explanation videos for animated puppets.
2. Consoles
Another video by Okay Samurai for an animated cartoon about Playstation, Xbox, Switch, and PC — four robots sharing a downtown apartment.
Commercial Video Examples
It was about time for puppets to make an appearance in that field. We expect to see more commercials with Adobe Character Animator puppets in the future.
3. Greek Advertisment for Lidl
Why was there such a disturbance on Olympus from October 2015 to February 2016? Because all the Gods were in LIDL, to anticipate his Divine offerings. As Greek Gods tend to do. The video was animated by Gabriel Melissourgakis for a Lidl commercial.
Campaign Video Examples
Campaign videos also feel like a perfect spot for puppets. Similar to explanation videos and commercials, they take full advantage of the software. Below you’ll see a funny promotional video for a public campaign with mini games, an artistic video for a UNICEF campaign, and a Russian environmental video.
4. Los Omblis – Public Good Campaign
A Public campaign aimed at improving citizen coexistence in a playful way through mini-games and a hilarious promotional video. Fede Puopolo and Lucas Velek share their entire design process from creating the characters to animating them on their project page.
5. Naked truth of Sexy Selfies
Motion Designer Picasso Chang worked with Focus Films to create this piece for UNICEF Malaysia’s campaign #ClickWisely #ReplyForAll. It shows the price to pay for gaining popularity with naked selfies.
6. Sad Earth
A Russian animated video by freelancer Oleg Pak that shows the characters Earth and Mars. In the video, the earth is sad because Mars doesn’t want to communicate with him for being stinky and dirty. Earth cannot clean itself and feels angry that people can only make messes and exhaust resources. It’s basically an environmental video that wishes to inspire people to live in harmony with nature and help the earth become clean.
Music Video Examples
Let’s start with some amazing music videos, made with various animation programs. The characters, however, are made and synched with Character Animator. We promise you’re up for a treat.
7. DJ Aktive – The City ft. Common, Freeway, Bri Steves, DJ Jazzy Jeff
An amazing music video for the song The City by DJ Aktive. It’s a great song with love to Philly and a mesmerizing video with animated characters. No two ways about it.
8. Borderline
Borderline is a music video for a song by We Ghosts with the same name. The characters are literal cardboard puppets and the video offers great visuals and originality.
9. Teenage Hearts
This is a 2D video clip by Raya Boteva and Robin Renard for the Nantes-based band, Teenage Hearts. The video was produced for the “Just Another Clown” song, and it includes 12 hand-drawn frames and several states of the character in motion.
10. Extraneous
A sweet music video by Okay Samurai with his own puppet character performing. The song is a parody of various artists such as Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Taylor Swift, Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello, Blanco Brown, and Lil Nas X & Billy Ray Cyrus.
Channel Message Video Examples
Sometimes you need to message your audience and friends through your social media. And what better way to do that than a personalized video with cool animated characters.
11. Happy Holidays
We made this some time ago to wish all our friends Happy Holidays using our stock Character Animator puppets. What we used to make this video was Adobe Character animator for the puppets and After Effects for the complete animation.
12. Happy New Year Wishes
Animation greeting by motion graphics creator Yurie Manning with Character Animator and PremierePro. It shows a cute gingerbread puppet character who is very shy and lovable and simply wants to wish Happy Holidays to his loved ones.
Kids Series Video Examples
We can’t fail to mention the biggest niche where cartoon characters get the most appreciation. children adore them and they are perfect for cartoon series and educational shows.
13. Cosmonut’s Selfie Snacks on Mars
Cosmonut, or Eugene “Cosmo” Nutt, shares a selfie from Mars exploring why Mars is the color red? Worker Studio Animation has adapted the character to work as a 2D, performance capture puppet for his Selfie Snacks.
14. Yippee Kids TV
Yippee Kids TV by WeProDigi Agency is a fun and educational program designed to fill up children’s entertainment time with a variety of adorable characters, songs, activities. The following video features puppet characters singing the popular song Baby Shark.
15. Gecko’s Learning Videos For Toddlers
Gecko can teach you anything! He is a character at the Toddler Fun Learning channel on YouTube that publishes educational videos for babies, toddlers, and children.
16. How to Draw a Kangaroo
Did you know that the mother kangaroo takes her young in a bag to protect them? Today Maré will teach you how to draw a super cool kangaroo. This cute duckling puppet character was created by Clemente Maciel for a Portuguese kids’ show on YouTube.
Broadcast and Commentary Video Examples
The only convenient way to animate a character live is through a synched puppet. In these examples, you’ll see such puppets used for night shows and commentary videos. Puppets are also growing popular on twitch for gaming livestreams.
17. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Imagine falling asleep at home and waking up as a two-dimensional cartoon hosting a talk show at the Ed Sullivan Theater. That’s exactly what happened to Stephen Colbert and Jon Batiste in The Late Show’s first-ever animated monologue.
18. Toys Review
This video is an example of using puppets as an avatar for your own show. It’s ideal for streams and commentary videos. In this case, Toy Beast reviews Mezco John Wick, SH Figuarts Thor & Thanos, and other action figures.
19. Mars on Air News
This video was animated by Motion Designer & Editor from Germany Thomas Dahm for a personal Sci-Fi News Show project. The video is in German and shows the news spokeswoman (spokesbot) Roxy Robotov who broadcasts the daily news from the planet Mars.
Web and TV Series Examples
Another growing trend in cartoon series, especially web series is the usage of puppets for shortening the animation process of characters. Let’s look at some examples.
20. Space Princess
Animated Extras is a channel for SciFi web series that puppets from character Animator. In this episode Bob finds a person floating in space only to find out it’s a beautiful space princess on a mission.
21. Pet Store
Another cool video by Animated Extras. Grandpa goes to the pet shop to return a pony. The pony, however, happens to be a guy in a unicorn onsie who wishes to find a home.
22. Drama at the Cookies
Dimitri is badly in love with Martina. Will there be a happy end? Let’s find out! Puppets and video by Maximilian Zenk.
23. The Night We Were SWATted
In this episode of a talk-show- like cartoon series by HECZTOONS, the main character tell a story of the night he got raided by a SWAT team.
24. Scavengers from Outer Space
“Los Carroñeros del Espacio Exterior (Scavengers from outer space)” is a low-budget web animated series for adults created by Onem Studio, with a vintage-styled cartoon about the journeys of Captain Moho and his space tribulation.
25. The Adventures of Aylzee and Imaginary Friends
Find out what happens when Aylzee realizes that Themba could be responsible for some of the Cash In Transit Heists that have been going on. Drawn and animated by Lwazi Aylzee.
Funny Video Examples
In our last section, we cleared the way for funny videos, parodies, and personal projects by professionals, freelancers, and enthusiasts. Everyone is having fun with their puppets, experimenting with different genres.
26. Dr. Applesmith Finally Broke the Time Travel Barrier
In this video by Shmideo, Dr. Greg Apllesmith (The Dumbest Scientist in the World), has his theory. According to what most scientists theorized, when an object moves faster than the speed of light, it would travel back in time. But what about slower than light-speed? If an object were to travel slow enough, wouldn’t it travel to the future? Dr. Greg Apllesmith shares the phenomenal success of his experiment in this hilarious video.
27. Couch potatoes
Sometimes one has to just do it for the meme. In this video, Frank and Steinway offer 3 seconds of their original character chilling with Bernie Sanders with mittens. This meme was everywhere in January.
As a bonus by the same creators, this walking animation test of the puppet also looks lovely:
28. Animated Star Wars Parody
An absolutely hilarious Star Wars parody by the French Pineapple based on the emblematic “I have the higher ground” scene from Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The video has uncensored language and is recommended for an adult audience.
29. Danos the Manos
Here’s a quick animation by the Graphic Designer Bradley Platz who rigged and animated his friend to look like the mad titan Thanos. The whole project was most likely intended as an inside joke but we’re glad the animator shared it with the rest of the world.
30. “TED” and Videezy
This puppet video was made by design enthusiast Tyler Grant for a design challenge. The particular assignment was to create an advertisement for a cause or small business using an original character. Said challenge required the advert to be a minimum of 30 seconds long and include as much information as possible. TED (the character) is a master salesman (self-proclaimed title) and will pitch any product likely to cause users discomfort.
Final Words
These were today’s 30 videos that show the possibilities before the puppets. We hope you enjoyed these Adobe Character Animator examples and felt inspired to craft your own videos, series, campaigns, or educational videos. Adobe will keep on releasing new features in the future, so the possibilities of the software are yet to be unraveled. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, why not check these related articles and tutorials on Character Animator.
