Foundations in Modern 2D Animation - CGMA

Foundations in Modern 2D Animation

An 9-week course where students will digitally create modern short animations that are fun and engaging to watch

OVERVIEW

VIDEO

COURSE OVERVIEW

Jump Start into Animation!

Put down your pegbars and pencils, because this class is about learning animation the modern way. Students will dive head first into a series of projects specially designed to get you animating fast. Starting with the foundation, we will get an introduction to Adobe Animate CC and learn about the principles of motion. Students will practice being an animation clean up artist, design their own animation friendly characters, and build a walk cycle. This class will introduce students to basic 2D rigs (IE: Symbols), and we’ll learn to combine these new tools with traditional animation techniques. We will go over the process for finishing animation, including inking, coloring and even lighting. In the final project, students will animate their own short loop. After completing this course, students can take the 2D Animation Essentials course.

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

9 weeks

Materials:

Adobe Animate CC, Wacom Tablet (or equivalent), Adobe Premiere | Recommended reading: The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Due each week. Expect to spend 8-10 hrs/wk viewing lectures, q&a, and time on assignments.

Skills Level:

Beginner to Intermediate

Feedback:

Individually Recorded

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Course pre-req: Analytical Figure Drawing, Fundamentals of Character Design

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

9 weeks

Materials:

Adobe Animate CC, Wacom Tablet (or equivalent), Adobe Premiere | Recommended reading: The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Due each week. Expect to spend 8-10 hrs/wk viewing lectures, q&a, and time on assignments.

Skills Level:

Beginner to Intermediate

Feedback:

Individually Recorded

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Course pre-req: Analytical Figure Drawing, Fundamentals of Character Design

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

9 weeks

Materials:

Adobe Animate CC, Wacom Tablet (or equivalent), Adobe Premiere | Recommended reading: The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Due each week. Expect to spend 8-10 hrs/wk viewing lectures, q&a, and time on assignments.

Skills Level:

Beginner to Intermediate

Feedback:

Individually Recorded

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Course pre-req: Analytical Figure Drawing, Fundamentals of Character Design

COURSE OVERVIEW

Instructor Trailer

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

EXPAND ALL COLLAPSE ALL

The more you know, the better.

Week 1 | Crash into Flash! Learn the basic tools of Adobe Animate CC and how to use them

Week 2 | Fundamentals of Traditional Hand Drawn Animation

Hand drawn, I thought Animation was done a computer? | Continuing the basic principles of traditional animation | Learn how to rough out a drawing and create a more dynamic ball bounce with squash and stretch. | Animate a simple blob character | Add in-betweens to smooth out animation | Traditionally Animate a flapping flag

Week 3 | Animation Clean-up!

Week 4 | Character Design for Animation

Design your own Animation friendly character! | Draw a complete Animated Character turnaround. | 8 poses on the Photoshop Timeline. | Track facial features to retain likeness. | Hone our rotation abilities and keep designs very consistent. | IMPORTANCE OF SIMPLICITY

Week 5 | Walk Cycles

This is a BIG one! | We learn about walk cycles, and the Richard Williams way of constructing them. | Discuss the 4 poses needed to make a walk cycle | Complete a practice walk cycle | Then create an original walk cycle with your own character | Study the arcs, bounces and timing of a walk cycle | Discuss secondary animation on a walk cycle. | Demonstrate how to effectively loop a walk cycle.

Week 6 | Lip Syncing, a lesson in Flash Symbols, Nested Animations and Basic Rigs

Design your own character based on a voice over provided | Learn the 10 mouth shapes needed for basic speaking | build a simple face rig and animate a character talking! | Discuss Flash tricks and puppet style animation | Nested symbols and how they are used. | Learn about the FRAME PICKER | Classic Tweens and how to use them effectively with EASES | Demonstration on Layer Parenting and simple puppet rigs. | Alternative cleanup methods using the pen and pencil tool.

Week 7 | Roughing Out and Completing Complex from Storyboard

Movin’ on up! |Animate a scene from a short film with a layered Background. | Discuss more concrete animation methods and how to draw “ON MODEL.” | Using a character turn around sheet effectively. | Rough out character animation based on an animatic. | Smearing, anticipation, timing and arcs. | Pose to pose style animation. | Applied secondary animation.

Week 8 | Create Your Own Animation! ( a looping short)

It all comes together now. We’ll Learn about the entire animation pipeline | Complete and execute your own idea from storyboarding, to final animation | Learn to export animation for final compositing | Importance of PNG Sequences | This is a mini After Effects and Premiere Pro tutorial | Add lighting and shadows and other compositing tricks in After Effects to our animation. | Exporting lossless video formats | Sound and final touches | getting your animation ready for social media. | The importance of completing independent animation projects, such as submitting to “Loopdeloop.” | Students will have two weeks to work on final assignment.

Week 9 | Continue Creating Your Own Animated Loop (a looping short)

Students will continue to work on the final homework assignment.

Foundations in Modern 2D Animation

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Instructor

Unleashing your creativity

Andrea Gerstmann

/Freelance Artist

LECTURES BY Brent Noll

Andrea Gerstmann is an artist and animator with a BFA in painting who has worked in the animation industry several years. She is known for her work Storyboarding on TV shows such as 'BoJack Horseman' (Netflix); 'Tuca and Bertie' (Netflix); 'Human Discoveries' (Facebook); and 'The Great North' (Fox) and her work Background Painting on TV shows including: 'Apple and Onion' (Cartoon Network); 'Pinky Malinky' (Nickelodeon); 'Pig Goat Banana Cricket' (Nickelodeon); and 'Summer Camp Island' (Cartoon Network). She is also the Creator and Director of the Nickelodeon animated short 'Dog and Squirrel' and has a YouTube Channel with instructional videos about art and animation. Andrea enjoys working on all parts of animation. In her personal work, she actively creates many animations where she comes up with the ideas, storyboards, creates the designs and animates it.

INSTRUCTOR'S GALLERY:

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STUDENT GALLERY

Foundations in Modern 2D Animation

Student Gallery

STUDENT INTERVIEWS

Walk This Way: Learning the Fundamentals of 2D Animation

Interview with Seiji Lim

Walk This Way: Learning the Fundamentals of 2D Animation

Interview with Seiji Lim

Bringing It All Together

Interview with Sofie Gjengstoe

Bringing It All Together

Interview with Sofie Gjengstoe

SPRING TERM REGISTRATION

Feb 8, 2021 - Apr 26, 2021

ONLY

$749

COURSE BEGINS

April 17th

PRICING SCHEDULE

Even though our courses are the most affordable for the quality of education.

These FINANCE OPTIONS allow you to focus on your goals instead of the barriers that keep you from reaching them.

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Isabella Santiso-Murray

Absolutely amazing teacher!! I couldn’t have asked for a better class!

”

Yaara Maimon

I had no previous knowledge in animation and now after the course I’m able to create a short animation by myself!

”

Emily Newman

As an amateur animator it’s hard to pick tools you want to stick with, so seeing a professional workflow and how they use software and tools was very eye-opening.

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