10 Animated Cartoon Backgrounds to Bring Life to Your Creations

Looking for animated cartoon backgrounds for commercial use or want to make your own? Animated cartoon backgrounds can be a cool touch to add to your Zoom backgrounds, video streams, animations, and more, especially if you’re looking to enhance your commercial use cartoons. They’re a huge step up from a traditional static background! 

Cartoon backgrounds are popular for video calls, and they make once-boring remote meetings more fun and light-hearted. Your background of choice can also display your unique personality or your mood. Others can tell a lot about you, just by looking at what you choose to display on the screen behind you.

Also, backgrounds can help showcase your company or online brand. Cartoon animations, in particular, can serve as an innovative backdrop for:

• Animations
• Games
• Presentations
• Educational videos for children
• Self-help videos

Many beginner animators don’t use backgrounds, but they can really help to tell a story and provide something interesting in the background. It’s time to spice up your digital space and image with an eye-catching background!

For some unique and original user-created inspiration, visit the Anizone community or Animation Desk’s Instagram page for cartoon backgrounds in action. You can also check out the creative software features that Kdan Mobile offers.

Fun Cartoon Backgrounds for Different Occasions

Though there are many inspiring animated cartoon backgrounds out there on the web, it can be hard to decide on the exact aesthetic or design you’re going for. Ideal cartoon Zoom backgrounds or comic-style backdrops are simple and have a seamless looping background, ensuring the animation looks smoother.

We’ve compiled a list of unique ideas for you to explore when searching for the perfect versatile cartoon background images for various online meeting settings. Remember to look for designs that have creative commons licenses or designs that can be freely reproduced and used for commercial purposes. You can also find backgrounds that can be bought! 

1. Skyscrapers Buildings Background

Are you interested in a cityscape for the setting of your story? Do you enjoy the city skyline, complete with skyscrapers and rows of buildings? A cartoon city background might be for you. It can add a great ambiance and set to your workspace.

2. Background with a Night City

Another option is an animated background of a city at night. Everyone likes a well-lit evening view of a city, especially from a bird’s eye perspective.

3. Building Site Background

If you’re into the industrial landscape, a background illustration or animation of a construction site or industrial building might be more your vibe.

4. Beautiful Farm Cartoon Background

A popular choice for video calls and animations alike, a green or natural background is always a calming setting.

5. Cartoon Winter Forest Background

Mostly white backgrounds produce a whimsical and organic background scene. This can be more of a dramatic background, possibly featuring winter creatures and animals of different kinds.

6. Forest Environment Background

If you’d like a green background with lots of trees and forest animals, the natural forest scene is well-suited for you. A beautiful autumn woods background or autumn landscape background can be an excellent choice if you are looking for season backgrounds.

7. Cartoon Background with a Rainbow

A cheerful cartoon background always sets a pleasant mood. The sight of a rainbow can help you remain positive and creative throughout the day.

8. An Enchanting Cartoon Character Background

This cute cartoon pattern background is the perfect choice if you love kawaii-style characters. These backgrounds can give you and others warm, fuzzy feelings.

9. Comic Book Style Background

If you’re a fan of comic books and are looking for a background for game streaming, a comic background will be an impressive way to express this art form. Whether it’s a Manga or DC Comics style background, there’s a certain charm to the classic comic book background.

10. Outer Space Cartoon Background

For something truly intergalactic, try an outer space cartoon background. This could be a planet image background, a solar system, or a galaxy image. You can also mix it up with an out-of-this-world martian background to give the idea of being in space.

List of Websites for Cartoon Backgrounds Inspiration

Here are some websites for you for inspirations to create your unique backgrounds:

1. Unsplash – offers a wide variety of high-resolution images that can be used for free, including many suitable for virtual backgrounds.
2. Pexels – another website with free stock photos, including some that work well as virtual backgrounds.
3. Canva – offers a range of customizable virtual backgrounds that you can use for your meetings.
4. Zoom – has a variety of virtual backgrounds built into its software that you can use during meetings.
5. Google Images – you can search for free images that can be used as virtual backgrounds on Google Images, just make sure to check the usage rights for each image.
6. WallpaperSafari – has a collection of free virtual backgrounds that you can download for use in your meetings.
7. Vecteezy – offers a selection of vector graphics that can be used as virtual backgrounds.
8. Getty Images – while Getty Images typically requires a license to use their images, they offer a selection of free virtual backgrounds that you can use for your meetings.

Remember to always check the usage rights of any image or background that you plan to use in your meetings to ensure that you are not infringing on any copyrights or other legal rights.

How To Create Your Own Animated Cartoon Background

Searching for the perfect cartoon background online can be time-consuming, especially if you want it to be unique and suit your personal taste. However, there’s a way to craft your very own cartoon background drawing from scratch!  Animation Desk is the perfect easy software to use for your ideal cartoon background. Here’s how: 

Step 1: Choose the specific style of cartoon background drawing you wish to create. For example, do you want to try a pattern? Nature, cartoon characters, cityscapes, and other captivating cartoon landscapes that we’ve listed above can be created as well. Some questions to get you started are: What is your personal aesthetic? What type of image do you want to portray? What do you want to look at every day?

Step 2: Once you decide what kind of animated cartoon background landscape you want, think about the motion of your animation.

Step 3: Decide your background color, video duration, frame, and FPS. You can start drawing!

Step 4: Add motion to each frame and color them.

Step 5: Test your animation, and you are done!

Customize Your Cartoon Background with Animation Desk

Whether it’s an animation of a boy walking through a forest or a chill cityscape, there are many different aesthetics and visual effects to choose from in our huge collection, allowing you to create your perfect animation background. You can use background stock video clips, or completely customize your setup by making your own!

To enhance your skills as a cartoon artist and delve deeper into the world of making your own cartoon animations, take a look at this Udemy course or even look on YouTube for some tutorial videos and inspiration. Animation Desk and its accompanying Anizone are also great ways to get into the world of animation as a beginner. We’d love to see you share your work with us on Instagram at @animation_desk!