If you’re looking to get into the art of animation, you need the right course to get started. Whilst it is possible to simply pick up the necessary skills of this art form through trial-and-error and the occasional book for complete beginners.
But with this medium being such a visual medium, as well as incredibly taxing, it pays to have a good instructor or course that can show you the ropes.
Fortunately, there is quite a lot of exceptional course that can be found online that help teaches you everything you could want to know about animation, from beginner to advanced.
And many of them can be found on Skillshare, the online learning platform that hosts a whole range of courses on different topics. Read on to find the right
Finding The Right Course
This can have the effect of making it quite difficult to pick just a few online tutorials to start your animation career or journey with.
Fortunately, we have helped cut down this trouble on your end, by picking out some of the best animation classes that you can find on
These online classes will cover everything, from how to use specific programs for your animation goals or deadlines, to outlying the fundamentals that you will need across all forms of animation.
1. Animation For Illustration: Creating Layered GIFs With Photoshop & After Effects
Starting this list off with a
Because let’s be honest, GIFs are the lifeblood of meme culture aside!
Joking aside, animated GIFs are an incredibly useful skill to have in your arsenal to create, especially for many companies that want to have a strong presence on social media.
So it isn’t just a skill that will be entertaining to have in your private life, but also incredibly profitable to have on your resume in your professional career too!
Thai course teaches you how to create layered GIFs in both After Effects and Photoshop, two programs that are widely used across the industry, so you’ll have no trouble finding people who recognize this proficiency too!
2. Character Rigging With Duik Bassel
When it comes to animating in 3D, one of the most vital skills that you can learn is the ability to create a frame (or rigs) for characters that you can then articulate in your animations.
After all, it beats having to hand-draw or recreate a character in every frame like you do with 2D!
However, it is also one of the most tricky skills to learn, so having a course like this one here is a pretty useful skill to have as both an amateur and a professional.
Ruik Bassel is a widely used animation software when it comes to 3D animation as well, so you know that you’ll be able to put the skills that you learn here to good use too!
3. Animation for Illustration: Adding Movement With Procreate & Photoshop
Of course, when people think of animation, they are often thinking of the very idea of motion itself. That is, after all, all that animation is, whether it is digital or hand-drawn!
This particular motion design course is the perfect way to take your drawing and other illustrations, and breathe life into them through the magic of animation.
This is the ideal course for a beginner motion designer, keep in mind.
However, if you might be someone who has at least a little animation experience under their belt, or already has a pretty strong grasp on how to use programs like Procreate and Photoshop, this is the course for you!
4. Character Animation Basics: Create A Dance Loop With After Effects & Photoshop
Now, if you’re looking for a course that can help you get to grips with those basics of character animation, you’ve come to the right place with this course.
Starting with simple hands-on projects, like making a character dance, this course will help teach you the foundational skills that you will take with you through almost any other type of character and movement animation.
Plus, this course will help show you some creative shortcuts that the instructor has picked up over the years, and help ease your workflow.
Because the key to good animation is as much smart work as it is hard work!
5. Animating With Ease In After Effects
Adobe After Effects is an animator’s best friend, as you will soon learn in this particular course!
This course is the perfect way to get started in learning how to animate with this incredibly popular piece of software.
One of the aspects that can often put newcomers off from getting to grips with animation is the initial complexity that so many animation programs seem to have.
So to have a course that helps you get to grips with one of the most popular will be a massive boost to not just your skills, but your confidence as a creator and animator in your animation journey.
Plus, the step-by-step instructions on how to use after effects that this course provides make it perfect for people who have just bought After Effects for the first time, and want to get started right away.
6. Into Animation: Blender 3D Essential For Animators
Like After Effects, Blender 3D might just be one of the most popular digital animation tools used by both casual animation enthusiasts, as well as full-time professionals.
So this course will help you get to grips with a program that is well-known throughout the industry, as well as many of the features that all animation programs use, such as rigging and 3D landscaping.
Considering how overwhelming using 3D animation can feel as a newbie, this is a course that anyone interested in not just this program, but this entire 3D animation section of the medium should take a look at!
7. How To Make An Animated YouTube Video
This is the perfect course to take if you are just getting started on the world’s most popular video platform and need help making animated videos!
When it comes to gaining an online presence for your small business or channel, YouTube can be a place of incredible opportunity, but also a merciless and cruel platform if you do not have the right content or even introduction for that matter.
So having a course that can help you take care of the latter issue is a great skill to have handy, whether you are an independent content creator, or are looking to expand your skill set when it comes to digital marketing for you or your company.
8. Character Animation: Creating Run Cycle From Motion Capture
Many people seem to forget or not realize that not only is motion capture a great tool to have for helping decrease your animal workload, but also a way to help add character to your animations.
If you know how to use it, of course!
So, having a course that can teach you those skills, as well as a way to further smooth out the entire process, will be an incredible course to have in your schedule.
By learning how to animate a run cycle, you will also learn the core principles behind capturing real-life motion and transplanting that into your work.
All you need to do is start watching and learning!
9. Basics Of Hand-Drawn Animation
While 3D animation has blown up in popularity over the last 15 to 20 years, 2D hand-drawn is still an incredible skill to have for any creator or artist.
This particular course will help teach you the 12 core principles of animation, skills that you can use not just in 2D animation, but pretty much any type of animation out there!
So, if you’re looking for the perfect beginner course, you know where to look next!
10. Animation for Graphic Designers: How To Animate A Logo
Finally in this list, we couldn’t forget about that field of animation that often goes underappreciated by the masses here. That is, the field of graphic design animations!
This is a cause that anyone who already has little training and experience will especially be able to make use of in their lives and careers.
The only thing that we would mention is that this is a course that is geared toward people who already have a little knowledge of graphic design under their belts. (Check out ‘10 Best Skillshare Graphic Design Classes You Can Try Today’.)
So if you’re a complete newbie, we would recommend checking out another course on the subject first before coming back to this one.
(If you’re looking to stay on
However, for those people who want/need to learn how to create animated logos, to animation storyboarding, this is the place to go to the next level for graphic designers!
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it!
With so many different aspects of animation to start learning about, there is no time like the present to join the Skillshare online learning community and try one of these animation courses for yourself, with every kind of animation, from hand-drawn to 3D models.
So? What are you waiting for? Get started, and get creative!
