Learn Adobe Animate at Hexjibber.com

Hexjibber by Andy Sykes

Here at Escape Studios we focus primarily on teaching 3D character and creature animation in Maya, training our students to reach a professional level at which they can find work in the animation industry.

We also teach 2D animation, using Adobe Animate, the software formerly known as Flash. The skills learned in 3D animation are highly transferable to 2D, and there is plenty of work these days in both 2D and 3D animation.

For any of our students who might need a summer refresher course in Adobe Animate, we  recommend the superb website hexjibber.com, created by the very talented Andy Sykes. There are some excellent free tutorials to learn the basics of 2D animation using Adobe Animate.

The tutorials are clear and well paced, and easy to understand. Once you've mastered the interface, the rest is down to you.  In the end, great animation isn't really about software. A good animator understands timing and spacing, and must be able to give a performance.  After all, animators are entertainers and, like actors, our job is to entertain audiences.  Over the course of a long career the software will change, but the essentials of the job will remain the same.

Hexjibber - home of Andy Sykes - and awesome Flash tutorials

Hexjibber.com was built by Andy Sykes and is a superb resource for students. The videos are completely free and can be found here.

As with any online content, you should start with the simple stuff and build up. Andy teaches the basics, layering in more advanced material like walk cycles, lipsync, and other animation skills.

There is also a YouTube channel here where you can watch the videos.

Andy has even created a whole series of tutorials showing how to create special effects; stuff like fire, smoke and water - even allowing you to make a Hokusai-style wave. 

Here at Escape Studios we teach out students to be as flexible as possible. Plenty of animation projects are still done in 2D, since there isn't always time to build complex 3D assets.

Being able to master different software packages and deliver different styles of animation is part of having a long and fulfilling animation career.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our new BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2017, follow this link.   To apply, visit the official page here.