2D Character Animator / Cartoon Animator

2D Character Animator / Cartoon Animator

Job Description

Experience - 25 years preferred

Employment Type - Full-Time, Permanent

Location - Hybrid – Chandigarh

Salary - 3–6 LPA, based on experience, portfolio and practical skills

Industry - Animation / Digital Media / Social Media Content

About the Role

We are launching a new creative initiative focused on developing original short-form cartoon content for social media. We are looking for a creative and hands-on 2D Character Animator / Cartoon Animator who can help bring characters, stories and ideas to life.

The role will primarily involve creating animated videos using recurring characters, backgrounds and storytelling elements. The ideal candidate should be able to take a concept or script and convert it into a polished final video, including storyboarding, character animation, lip-sync, scene composition and basic editing.

As an early-stage creative initiative, this role offers meaningful ownership. The selected candidate will have an opportunity to help shape the characters, animation style, visual identity and production workflow from the beginning.

Key Responsibilities

• Create engaging 2D cartoon and character-based animated videos for social media.
• Convert scripts and concepts into storyboards, scenes and finished animated sequences.
• Animate character expressions, body movements, interactions and dialogue scenes.
• Perform character rigging and create reusable animation setups where appropriate.
• Create and maintain recurring characters, backgrounds, props and other visual assets.
• Perform lip-sync and synchronize animation with dialogue or voiceovers.
• Apply transitions, timing and scene composition to make videos visually engaging.
• Add basic sound effects, music, captions and other supporting elements as required.
• Edit and prepare final videos for YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Facebook and other social platforms.
• Create content in multiple formats, including 16:9 and 9:16.
• Maintain consistency in character appearance, animation style and overall visual identity.
• Organize editable project/source files so characters and assets can be efficiently reused.
• Collaborate on creative ideas and suggest improvements to storytelling, pacing and animation quality.

Required Skills

• Strong practical experience in 2D character animation / cartoon animation.
• Good understanding of character movement, facial expressions, body mechanics and animation timing.
• Experience with lip-sync, dialogue scenes and character interactions.
• Ability to create animations using reusable or rigged characters.
• Understanding of storyboarding, visual storytelling and scene composition.
• Basic illustration, character-design and background-design capability.
• Good video-editing skills and attention to pacing.
• Understanding of short-form social-media content and platform-specific video formats.
• Ability to independently take a project from script/concept to final video.
• Ability to balance creative quality with practical production timelines.

Software Skills

Strong working knowledge of one or more professional 2D animation tools is required. Relevant tools may include:

• Toon Boom Harmony
• Adobe Animate
• Moho
• Adobe After Effects
• Adobe Illustrator / Photoshop
• Adobe Premiere Pro / DaVinci Resolve

Experience with Blender or other 2D/3D animation tools is an advantage but is not mandatory. We value the quality of the candidate’s animation work and portfolio more than expertise in any single software package.

Qualifications

• Diploma or Bachelor’s Degree in Animation, Multimedia, Graphic Design, Fine Arts, Visual Communication or a related field is preferred, but not mandatory.
• Candidates without a formal animation qualification are encouraged to apply if they have a strong relevant portfolio and practical experience.
• Approximately 2–5 years of relevant animation experience is preferred.

Most Important Requirement – Portfolio

A portfolio/showreel demonstrating 2D character animation is mandatory.

The portfolio should preferably include examples of:

• Cartoon or character-based animation
• Dialogue scenes and lip-sync
• Facial expressions and character movement
• Character interactions
• Storytelling across multiple shots or scenes
• Short animated sequences or social-media content

Candidates whose experience is primarily limited to corporate motion graphics, logo animation or typography animation without meaningful character-animation work may not be suitable for this position.

Preferred Candidate

• Enjoys creating cartoons, characters and story-driven content.
• Has a good sense of humour, visual timing and storytelling.
• Is comfortable working independently and taking creative ownership.
• Enjoys experimenting with ideas and helping build a new creative initiative from the ground up.
• Can create reusable characters and assets to improve production efficiency.
• Understands how to make the first few seconds of a short-form video engaging.
• Is receptive to feedback and can iterate quickly without losing attention to quality.

Application Requirements

1. Resume

2. Portfolio / showreel link

3. Examples of 2D character or cartoon animation created by you

4. Details of the animation software you primarily use

5. Current CTC

6. Expected CTC

7. Notice period / earliest joining date

Applications without a relevant 2D character-animation portfolio may not be considered.