An animator is someone who makes animated films — cartoons, 3D films, games, short clips — so that drawings, models, or computer figures seem to move. They plan how a character walks, how a face changes, how a scene flows, then they make the pictures do that, frame by frame or with software. Today many animators work on computers; some still draw by hand or move puppets one tiny step at a time. The word comes from Latin animātor: a person who gives life. In English you can also see it as animate + -or, the “person who does it” ending. Though actually, a close French cousin, animateur, can mean the person who runs a workshop or warms up a room; English mostly keeps animator for the film and game job. It is not a cartoonist (who often draws still comics), not an illustrator, and not only a voice actor. The start looks a little like animal, and both go back to a Latin word for breath and life — but an animator is not “an animal person.”