2D Character Animation Diploma Program

This course teaches the fundamentals of art and design theory. Students will learn what concepts create ‘appeal’ in any piece of art and be able to take those theoretical concepts into any visual medium. This course in art fundamentals will be one of the first taught in the program to create a foundation for students to build more complex concepts in later courses.

This course teaches the fundamentals of digital tools for animation production, primarily Harmony Toon Boom and Storyboard Pro. Students will learn how to use and set up the programs to do a number of animation production roles as well as touch on other photo and video production programs such as Adobe Premier, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe After Effects.

This course teaches the fundamentals of life drawing and will focus primarily on live figure drawing for the purposes of developing the students' understanding of the human figure, its proportions, anatomy, and movement using live models and photo references.

This course teaches the fundamentals of perspective and backgrounds art and how the job role of background artist or layout artist fits in the animation pipeline. Students will learn how to depict 3D space into a functional composition for the purposes of ‘setting the stage’ for animation production.

Building from art and design theory and life drawing, students will learn how those principles can be applied to character design to create an appealing character and how the role of character designer fits within an animation pipeline. Students will learn how to conceptualize and design characters from a variety of written descriptions and how and why to make their illustrations accurately depict those moods, personalities, features, and roles.

This course expands on the principles of ‘digital tools’ focusing on the specifics of ‘Character Rigging’. Students will learn how to use Toon Boom to turn a drawing into a posable, animatable ‘puppet’ for the purposes of animation production. This course will prepare students for the basics of the ‘Rigging Artist’ job role in the animation industry as well as give the students working knowledge for many other roles.

This course is split into two parts, with the first part dealing more with the fundamentals of what and how to animate. This course teaches the principles of animation, first coined by Disney artists in the book ‘Illusion of Life’ as well as following principles from ‘Animator’s Survivors Guide’. Students will not only learn how to make sequential art to create motion but also how to make that motion convey weight, thinking, storytelling, form, clarity, and appeal.

This course is split into two parts, with the second part dealing with more advanced techniques compared to the first part. This course also teaches the principles of animation, first coined by Disney artists in the book ‘Illusion of life’ as well as following principles from ‘Animator’s Survivors Guide’. In addition to learning how to generate motion with sequential art, students will also learn how to transmit shape, clarity, weight, storytelling, and appeal through that motion.

Building from art and design theory and background art, students will be introduced to ‘Storyboarding’ and where that fits into the animation pipeline. Students will get a brief history of film, animation, and narrative illustration and use that as examples of the rules of storyboarding and when and why to break those rules. Students will learn how to take a written script and translate that into a storyboard.

This course will teach students a combination of practical day-to-day workings of an animation studio, the culture, the environment, the workflow, and soft skills, as well as understanding and navigating contract law. Students will learn about the business of animation, how a studio or production makes money, tax incentives and grants, the legal environment, running a business, and branding, etc.

This course aims to guide students with a personal project that will both round out their demo reel as well as be a showpiece of all the principles and skills they have learned during their time with the program. Students will create a short scene at their own discretion and taste, guided by the instructor, which will give them the best chance at finding employment.

This course differs from ‘Personal Project 1’ in that it should be a different project that further looks at filling any possible artistic gap that has yet to be shown in the students work for the purposes of their portfolio. Otherwise, the course will continue as in ‘Personal Project 1’ in guiding students with creating a short scene at their own discretion and taste, which will give them the best chance at finding employment.

This is the final course of the program, and as such, it takes all assignments from previous courses and guides students in creating a ‘Demo Reel’ and portfolio website that best showcases their current artistic ability. Students will learn fundamentals in video and photo editing programs as well as graphic design and website design.