ANIMATING CERTAIN CHARACTERS?

So i am becoming an animator and after all of my college courses, i wanted to make a short animation of specific video game characters. Would i have to design them myself to make them look like that specific character or is there a way to get a copy of the character without having to redesign it to make it that person? (sorry if it sounds confusing)...but is there a site that lets you have a copy of that video game character and you can do all the animations with it yourself? Because i really wanted to make a neat scene but i dont want to spend a whole bunch of time trying to make my character look like the one i am trying to aim for, but then end up looking like crap. Help?! Thank you.