This disclosure generally relates to character animation. More specifically, this disclosure relates to pose selection using data analytics techniques applied to training data, and generating 2D animations of illustrated characters using performance data and the selected poses. An example process or system includes extracting sets of joint positions from a training video including the subject, grouping the plurality of frames into frame groups using the sets of joint positions for each frame, identifying a representative frame for each frame group using the frame groups, clustering the frame groups into clusters using the representative frames, outputting a visualization of the clusters at a user interface, and receiving a selection of a cluster for animation of the subject.