Animating Traditionally with Toon Boom
What you'll learn
- Create an animated scene, from scratch, using traditional animation principles and workflow.
- Create a simple storyboard and animatic using Toon Boom's Storyboard Pro.
- Create frame-by-frame animation using Toon Boom's Harmony.
Requirements
- This course features Toon Boom's Harmony and Storyboard Pro. While recommended, they're not required as the lessons focus on traditional animation fundamentals.
- Also compatible with Toon Boom's Animate, Animate Pro, and Harmony 17.
- As a digital animation course, a Wacom tablet is highly recommended for drawing in the software.
- No prior software knowledge required.
Description
This course was originally created for students participating in Skills Ontario's Animation Challenge (similar to the 11 Second Club), as a way to quickly get them comfortable with both the fundamentals of traditional animation as well as practical knowledge of Toon Boom's software. To do this, the course is designed to walk through the completion of a scene starting from analyzing dialogue, to story-boarding, to creating actual animation, while being sure to emphasize the core principles of animation.
With this in mind, the course is best suited for animation students that are either new to the medium, or those looking to bring their traditional skills to the digital realm, using Toon Boom. While there are many videos available online that feature Toon Boom's software, most of them focus on cut-out style animation, or puppets, rather than traditional frame-by-frame style animation. After getting many remarks from even industry pros surprised that Toon Boom can actually not only support traditional animation, but do it amazingly well, I felt it high time for some video tutorials focussing on the basics.
This course features Toon Boom's Storyboard Pro, and Harmony 11, industry standards in animation software. Although, to keep up with all the version changes, I've made sure to focus on features that are also available in both older and newer versions of Harmony (including Harmony 17), as well Toon Boom's former Animate, Animate Pro, applications. And for those absolute beginners, there's still plenty of information that can be used, whether you're still drawing with a pencil, or deciding what type of software to pick up for your next animated project.
This course includes 19, densely-packed lessons, over the span of exactly an hour.
A great way to fast-track your working knowledge of both animation and Toon Boom basics!
Who this course is for:
- This course is meant for beginner 2D animation students, focussing on animation principles and workflow.
- Traditional animators looking to quickly transfer their skills to Toon Boom's software will also benefit from the introduction of the basic and essential tools needed to animate frame-by-frame.
- This course is probably not for you if you're looking for more advanced features or rigging cut-out style characters.
Instructor
I've worked as a professional artist for twenty years, with the majority of that time in the game industry, working with such licenses as Rifts, Robotech, Transformers, and many others. During that time, I have also had the opportunity to study classical animation at Sheridan College, and later went on to return there as an animation professor. My class curriculum focussed on the digital side of animation, including Flash, Toon Boom, Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects. After that, I joined Toon Boom, as a full-time international trainer, working closely with major schools, studios, and events, around the world. While there, I was even able to help shape the professional certification program used today.
Since then, while I might sneak in a few freelance projects here and there, my main passion remains dedicated to teaching.