Hello! I tried looking it up on google but i didnt quite understand, could you explain what you do as an layout artist? Thanks :)))
Hello ! Sorry it took me a while to get around to this reply, and sorry that it's so long !
First off, keep in mind that I'll be talking about 2D traditional animation. "Layout" for CG productions is a different job entirely, and puppet based animation works in a different way as well. The layout step in animation is not universal throughout the world's various industries. It's quite prevalent in France and in Europe in general, and it exists in Japan under other forms, but from what I've heard it's not super common to work that way in the US. So keep in mind that working roles and pipelines are different depending on the country and production.
In my industry, "layout posing" or Character Layout comes after the storyboard and background design process and before the animation process. Layout artists create a few clean poses, sometimes just one per shot, sometimes all key poses depending on the needs of the shot. The idea is to give the animator a solid, on model, well composed and cleaned up (to a degree) base to work off and ensure the consistency of the design and artistic intent throughout. I'm a character designer as well as a layout artist, so I often do both, which helps a lot with model and design consistency, esp on smaller projects where I'm sometimes to only designer and layout artist.
Layout is more design-adjacent than animation because it's the step where various interpretation of model are decided depending on angles, framing, etc. Not every possibly base can be covered in model sheets and the layout artist often has to determine how to stylize certain things, detail level, pose clarity, etc. They also give pointers for acting, emotional cues, timing, although of course those things are also determined by storyboard artists before and animators afterwards. It kind of depends on how detailed the storyboard is and what the needs of the animation team are.
From what I gather, in the US the function of Storyboard Cleanup Artist or Storyboard Revisionnist is quite prevalent and tends to bridge the gap between storyboard artists and animators. Animators do their own layouts, and model revision is handled by supervisors. In Japan, character layouts are done at the same time as background layouts, usually by the animator themselves, but not always.
The character layout step is not included in every prod and can be bridged in other ways, but it's quite helpful in fully animated, more realistic-looking productions where models are demanding and difficult to hold (which I believe is why it's still so prevalent in Japan and France where those styles are popular). It helps the animators get a consistent base so they can focus on movement, timing and emotion, rather than losing precious time in retaining a model to the detriment of the energy or subtlety of the animation. That absolutely doesn't mean animators are not capable of doing this themselves (indeed layout artists often are animators as well), but having a dedicated step of the production to setup clean poses and solid models definitely streamlines the process and allows less experienced animators to be able work on more difficult models as well.