Animate em!

Animate em makes character animation fast, fun and accessible

Animate em! is a compact yet surprisingly capable tool for sketching character animation whenever inspiration strikes. Built around a simplified mannequin, it focuses on speed and clarity, letting you block out poses and motion without wrestling with complex rigs or cluttered menus.

The core workflow is refreshingly straightforward. A tap on empty space rotates the camera, dragging moves body parts, and standard pinch gestures handle zooming and panning. Within minutes, you can assemble key poses, arrange them on a timeline of up to 64 keyframes per clip, and play them back to see your motion take shape. Onion-skin “ghost” views of previous and next frames make it easy to refine arcs and spacing, a welcome feature for students and professionals alike.

Scenes can hold multiple clips, props, and simple blocky “land” structures, giving your animation a sense of place. You can mirror, copy, paste, and reset poses, change characters, switch skins, and even add your own PNG-based skins and props. This makes Animate em! a handy sandbox not only for animators and game developers, but also for storyboard artists and coaches who want to break down sports or dance movements.

On the downside, the interface can feel cramped on smaller screens, and the mannequin’s simplicity means you won’t be crafting detailed, production-ready performances here. It lacks advanced rigging features and isn’t a replacement for full desktop suites.

Still, as a portable sketchbook for motion ideas, Animate em! hits a sweet spot. It is lightweight, focused, and flexible enough to teach children the basics of making cartoons while remaining useful as a quick previs and blocking tool for more experienced users.