One of the most exciting but also daunting challenges that you'll face when designing the sounds for an animated project is the task of starting with a blank canvas. Because there is no actual location to hear how the environment sounds or how the space reacts to movement and speech, you’ll be building a sound world from scratch. It’s important to take care and be very intentional with the sounds that you choose to use.
You may be crafting anything from background sounds like ambiences, wind, weather and the hum of an interior, to foreground sounds like mechanical sound effects, vehicles, Foley effects and vocalizations.
Creating Your Own Sound Effects
With many cartoons and animations being set in incredibly surreal and abstract worlds, you may not be able to find the right sounds in a library. You’ll most likely have to go out to a location field recording or even build your own sound effects props.
For a lot of cartoons, you’ll want to avoid creating anything too realistic. Instead you may want to create more caricature style sound effects.