Historically, Winsor McKay's Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914, is often considered a super 1st case of confessedly character animation. Otto Messmer imbued his Felix the Cat with an instantly recognizable personality during a 1920s. A as a consequence decade, Walt Disney made character animation a particular focus of his animation studio, better showcased around productions like Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Dumbo. Disney animation creative person like Bill Tytla, Grim Natwick, Fred Moore, Ward Kimball, Les Clark, John Sibley, Marc Davis, Wolfgang Reitherman, Hal King, Hamilton Luske, Norm Ferguson, Eric Larson, Johnny Lounsbery, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston all became masters of the technique.

More luminary numbers inside character animation include a Termite Terrace/Warner Bros. staffers (Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Friz Freleng), independent animator Richard Williams, John Lasseter at Pixar, and latter-day Disney animators Andreas Deja and Glen Keane.

Character animation is augmented by special effects animation, which creates anything that is not the character; virtually all normally vehicles, machinery, and natural phenomena like rain, snow, and water.