Experimentation:
Silhouette studies

Personal experience

You can use the silhouette exercise if you want to experiment in character creation. You can make use of the primary shapes and make your character as interesting as possible in a very playful way.

There is no magic behind this, really. Just grab a piece of paper where you can draw freely and experiment without restrictions. Try as many different size combinations and shape combinations as possible. Strengthen the characters features as much as possible.

I underestimated the silhouette exercise. In animation visual language is super important and if your character does not convey that in the show don't tell it definitely will have effect on the end result. I think it is really insightful to do this exercise. Also just for fun. I think this is a very useful training. It teaches you the fundamentals: the basic shapes and how to manipulate it in a clear form.

When to use it

how to use it

Personal examples:

I used the silhouette exercise when I had to draw my keyframes. It is really useful for clear communication. It also takes away the overthinking: where should the limbs go, is it dynamic, is the anatomy correct? The silhouette exercise is so super simple it takes away all those things and focusses on what is most important and will tell the best story.