Zilla is ready to get animated: Free Character Animator puppet & new Puppet Maker style

The cartoon world is filled with amazing weddings. From Fiona and Shrek to Marge and Homer, weddings come in all shapes and sizes. Ruby and Sapphire (Steven Universe) marry on a beach. Mr. Ratburn and Patrick (Arthur) marry in the woods. And some get married on a ship like Ariel and Prince Eric (The Little Mermaid). These cartoon weddings are all filled with love, laughter, and more than a few antics. Whether your cartoon commitment celebration is virtual or in a beautiful outdoor setting, we can all use a little comedy as we make our way to the altar. The Zilla puppet is here to help.

Created by Digital Puppets, a cartoon studio based in the U.K., Zilla comes with expressive eyes, mouths, and hand triggers. You can even change her pupils to hearts. Download Zilla today. The design partners and brothers, Scott and Antony Evans, offer custom character designs in both 2D and 3D renders. Scott notes, “With the increase in social media marketing, there is now a huge demand for regular content to keep customers engaged and up to date with your latest offers. Using digital puppet technology, you can produce animated promotional content faster than traditional animation, keeping the costs lower for you without loss of quality.” And Antony adds, “Create a live talk show, animate a podcast, create a character for your gaming channel on Twitch. It’s a great way to engage with your audience and stand out from the crowd!”

Community Spotlight

Community is part of what makes a great wedding. Everyone coming together to help plan, prep, share, and support. And the same is true of the animation community. Check out this months Community Spotlight from Okay Samurai.

Puppet Maker in public Beta

Who better to officiate your cartoon wedding than the new Clay style in Puppet Maker? Clay was originally designed by Dovid Taub: writer, illustrator, puppeteer, and video editor, as well as the founder and creative director at Shmideo.

Clay was created using modeling clay, photographed, and then pieced together in Photoshop. Regarding puppets, Dovid says, “As a sort of side-effect of working with puppets, I’ve come to really appreciate tactile, physical media, things you can touch and feel. Clay characters allow us to bring some of that tangible quality to Character Animator. What I love about Character Animator is that it gives you the versatility and control of animation, mixed with the spontaneity of puppetry.” Talking about Clay he mentioned, “One cool thing I discovered about this puppet after I finished it and was playing around with it is that it can work on anything. I put the mouth and eyes on a photograph of an apple and had an instant apple character.” With that great idea, Dan Ramirez on the Character Animator team, took the Clay puppet and turned it into a Puppet Maker style and arms, legs, and multiple head shapes like an apple, lemon, flower, and football. He also added multiple mouth shapes, eyes, skin colors, and lots of triggers.

Currently in public Beta, Puppet Maker allows you to customize an animated character and get a unique puppet to use in your own creations. Puppet Maker lets you select a style, pick features like skin color and clothing, and generate a final optimized puppet. There are 11 available styles in Puppet Maker. Check out the Clay style in Puppet Maker.

Try Zilla and Clay today. Let's see what puppets you will marry together.

Resources

• More example puppets are here.
• More fun free puppets at Okay Samurai’s page.
• Want to learn more about using Character Animator? Here you go!