How To Animated (Furry Edition)

A how to guide to animating furry characters! (This isn't limited to furries and can scope out to other character models)

How To Animated (Furry Edition)

A how to guide to animating furry characters! (This isn't limited to furries and can scope out to other character models). For this guide I'll be using my wallpaper, Fenneko Poolside, as an example for how I made it.
Fenneko Wallpaper Link
For this project, I used Photopea to separate the character from the background so that any edits aren't affecting the background.

Animating Faces

Animating Eyes

I'm not going to bother explaining how to when theres a better tutorial online. Check this link on the wallpaper engine fandom to see how to blink.
Eye Blinking Link[wallpaper-engine.fandom.com]
I also animated the iris with an Iris Movement, and only selected the Iris and white bits with full smoothness. Along with a slight shake to raise the eyebrows up and down for more expression.

Animating Head

First start to animating the head of your character would be to decide how you want it animated. I'll show you what I did in this tutorial for my character.
First thing I animated was the full head. I started off by creating a shake and editing the Shake Direction by hitting Paint.

Then I make it do a spin with the center of the spin being around the neck. I did this with a very large brush size (big enough for the center of the brush to the end of the brush to cover the full head)

After doing this I go to its opacity and edit it by hitting Paint.

Once your inside, change the Amount to 0, and hit Clear at the top. Now the opacity for your image is set to blank.

Now set your brush to a decently big size (2000 for me) and paint it over the head only.

Blur the edge where the white opacity circle meets the body with a small brush size. Then set your brush to a middle size and make the amount 0 to remove some of the opacity if its creating a faded image like shown here, where it doubles.

Boom! Now your head tilts back and forth. For settings on what I used heres an image of it. Friction changes how much it eases. 1 means 0 easing. Anything bellow 1 or over 1 makes it stay open for less. Wallpaper engine describes it as "Biases towards the inner or outer part of the animation. For example, if you have shaking grass in the wind, you usually want a bit more erratic movement, you can use this option to achieve that." For speed I set it to 0.75 so its slower and strength at 0.3 so it moves further.

Animating Muzzle

I also animted the Muzzle (aka Mouth) of my character. To do this just create a Shake, and edit its direction. Then make it go up and down depending on the angle your character is in, and make it smooth.

Animating Ears

Ears are also simple, just create another Shake exactly like how the face shakes, making a spin with the center of the spin being around the beginning of the ear and the opacity being the ear and smoothing it as the base meets the head. Again if it starts creating faded doubles it means your fading when you need to use a fully solid brush.

Animating Fur

For animating fur, I just use a Foliage Sway and set the opacity to the spaces where there's fur.

Theres are my settings for it. Changing the scale higher makes it less uniform.

Animated Body

Animated Full Body

To fully animate the body, just simply make a Shake, and adjust the Shake Direction to be fully moving in one direction.

Then set the opacity to all the places you want to move. For mine I smoothed and didnt apply it to the hands or lower legs because I'm using separate layers and it would cause the body to move unwanted.

These are my settings

Animated Butt

For this character, I wanted the butt to raise more than body. Same process as before and only select the behind and blend.

Same settings as before but less strength not to overpower the movement and more friction to make it less smooth and more easing.

Animated Breasts

For this characters breasts I wanted them to show weight, so I animated them more. Same process as before and only select the breast area.

For settings keep everything default but make the strength less to not overpower.

Background

Ambiance

For the ambiance of this scene I just used Light Shafts, 2 Old and corner.

I made them positioned far away and very smooth to create a smooth faded light on the character, made one behind and one infront for depth.

Water

For the background animation I added a Water Ripple and selected only the pool.

I made it flow parallel to the edge of the pool, the one that can be seen at the water line. These are the settings.

[AmoRRious]

A comment I want to make, any issue with the doubling where it shows like a faded 2nd version of the image, DO NOT smooth the opacity layer, smooth the direction layer! I figured out my mistake so you don't have to lol.