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Motion

Science of Character Animation

Character Animation Course

Learn how to create lively and charismatic characters from scratch and direct funny animation scenes on your own. In this course, Markus Magnusson will share his unique approach to character design.

Course by Markus Magnusson
Character Animation Course
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What is this course about?

Get as much life as possible out of your 2d characters with this all-encompassing course taking you into the fascinating world of Character Animation. Markus will cover tonnes of classical animation and character design principles.

He will also share his unique techniques gained throughout his long experience of a professional animator and motion graphics designer.


About the author

Heyoo, My name is Markus Magnusson

Most of you probably know me as Motionmarkus. I’m a Swedish-born animator with over 10 years experience of in bringing characters to life. I’ve animated everything from Google Doodles to wizard sticker packs for Dropbox.

In this course I will spill the beans on all my techniques so if your characters are a little bit stiff & bent out of shape then you’ll love this course.

Course curriculum

What will I learn?

16 lectures / 9h+

Blocking Out a Character

Work on character animation starts with a character. For this reason, Markus will pay great attention to how really charismatic characters are created.

You will have a quick overview of Adobe Illustrator tools and then learn about blocking out a character, proportions, exaggerations and etc.

Adding Details

We will continue talking about character design and pay more attention to such things as hands & feet, face and hair and will finish with adding details and outlines and, of course, we will show you effective ways of working with color.

Dynamic Character Posing

Many believe that the main role in animation is played by easings and timings… But the truth is, the secret to good character animation lies in high-quality poses. So in this section you will learn what the line of action is and how to use it, how to work with weight and gravity, and how to build an expressive and balanced composition.

Facial Expressions

What emotion is your character expressing? There are a lot of small nuances in facial expressions, that’s why it is very important to know the basics of building emotions.

You will learn mouth and eyes designs and the ways to create different moods.

Master the Story

So, let’s start animating, right? Don’t hurry… To start with you need to have everything planned thoroughly. This stage is extremely important, as it helps to avoid tricky corrections when animating and it will also save some hair on your head from falling out.

In this lesson, we will talk about ways to generate ideas, create concepts and how to turn them into a complete captivating story.

Rigging the Character

A character is a complex system consisting of lots of limbs and other elements. So it’s very important to secure yourself against unnecessary trouble by splitting and naming layers in Illustrator first, then import it in After Effects and create a flexible rig. That will save tons of time and make the animation process much more comfortable. This is what this lesson is about.

Key Animation Techniques Part One

Alright, it’s time to animate. Markus will share with you a lot of different techniques he has learnt during his long journey as an animator. In this lesson we will talk about such principles as weight, anticipation, recoil and follow through.

Key Animation Techniques Part Two

After you have already got familiar with things that allow you to create the good animation basis it’s time to learn how you can add flexibility to your characters with the help of squash & stretch, whip and wave motion, and offsets.

Secondary Motion

A character consists of many details, and after main parts have been animated let’s create some secondary motion by animating clothes, hair and adding some smears or action lines to emphasize the motion.

Nice Walk-cycles

One of the greatest animators Ken Harris once gave a great piece of advice:

“A walk is the first thing to learn. Learn walks of all kinds, cause walks are about the toughest thing to do right”.

Energetic Run Cycles

A run is not just an accelerated walk. This movement has different dynamics, that’s what we will talk about here. Markus will show you the key poses and some secret ways to make your run cycles more expressive.

Pose to Pose

This approach will save you a lot of time while animating complex scenes with a lot of different actions. In this lesson you will learn how to plan your shot and all the further steps to achieve a really nice result instead of getting lost and spend a lot of time on experiments when animating each movement one by one.

Facial Expressions & Lip Sync

Even the slightest brow movement can cause a significant emotional response from the audience. Would be nice to know this trick as well as some others, wouldn’t it?

Here you will learn how to animate transitions between emotions and get equipped with the alphabet of lip-sync.

Acting and Timing

What if your viewers were able to watch your animation only once? Would they get the message? Animation is a true stage performance, so it follows the same principles and the same tricks can be used.

Here we will talk about body language, facial expressions, importance of the eyes and, of course, timings, which usually play even greater role in achieving the best possible dramatic effect than technically challenging animation.

Hand Animation & Gestures

The second part is devoted to adding details by animating hands and gestures.

Finalize your masterpiece

It’s time to finish up your animation, create a perfect loop, add sound design, render it out and post it on your Dribbble, Instagram, Vimeo or whatever.

+ Bonus

Get Our Scripts For Free

We’ve prepared the special scripts for free for 3 months
to ensure you will get the best experience
without buying additional products!
Check Scripts
Tool

Motion Tools PRO

Motion Tools Pro - AE Plugin
$40FREE
Tool

Character Tool

$40FREE
Check Scripts

What you will get?

Take a look at the student’s project after the completion of the course and

prepare yourself to participate in our next collaboration!


Character Animation by Markus Magnusson Course

Learn how to create memorable, expressive and balanced character designs for your future animations

Learn how to setup your scenes for animation and rigging techniques

Get acquainted with and dig deeper together with the author into classic animation principles that will take your works to a completely new level.

Become a better director of your future projects by learning about acting and timings.

Get familiar with exclusive animation techniques Markus has worked out from more than 10 years of experience in the industry.

No additional plugins needed.

We will provide you with an exclusive tool developed specifically for this course. Its work principle is pretty similar to most popular modern tools such as RubberHose, Limber, Duik, so you can easily apply this knowledge to work with any of them

Science of Character Animation by Markus Magnusson

Learn how to create lively and charismatic characters from scratch and direct funny animation scenes on your own. In this course, Markus Magnusson will share his unique approach to character design.

100% money back guarantee

If unhappy with the tool, you can request a refund within 14 days after the purchase and get every cent back. Tool purchased before the actual starting date refund can be requested up to 14 days after the first installation. Note: not applicable if purchased with a discount coupon

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