2D Animation with Harmony Starts 29 June

Our newest animation course - three months of intensive training in 2D Animation with Toonboom Harmony - starts on 26th June 2020.

Our new 12 week course is aimed at anyone who wants to learn the art and craft of 2D Animation in Toonboom Harmony, a software package that is increasingly becoming the industry standard for 2D Animation. The course aims to take students to a professional level of skill, making them studio-ready talent.

Taught by veteran animator and animation tutor Jessie Ilham, currently working at Blue Zoo, our course is designed to help our students find employment in the rapidly expanding 2D animation industry, which is undergoing a major renaissance both in the UK and overseas.

Bear animation by Alex Fox

Learn 2D Animation
The 12 week animation course is aimed at anyone who wants to learn the art and craft of 2D Animation in Toonboom Harmony - increasingly the industry standard software.

Learn the right skills
You might be a 3D animator wanting to break into 2D, or a graduate who didn’t get the right skills at university – or someone with no experience of animation who wants to make a career change. We teach all our students from scratch, and our goal is to make you job-ready by the end of the course.

Start with the fundamentals
We take you through all the essential principles of animation from the very beginning – bouncing a ball – through to sophisticated character and creature animation. We start with the basics of motion and locomotion, building up to pantomime, character performance, and also tackling the fundamentals of rigging in Harmony.

Tutor - Jessie Ilham

Jessie Ilham

We're delighted to welcome our newest animation tutor Jessie Ilham to teach our summer class in Toonboom Harmony in June 2020.

Jessie was educated at Sheridan College in Canada, and was a Lead Breakdown Artist at BrownBag Films before moving to Blue Zoo animation in London.

She is an experienced animator and rigger in ToonBoom Harmony, and has also trained teams of rigging artists, scene setup and layout artists.

Animation by Marina Drakos

Course Goal

The goal of the course is to give students a solid understanding of 2D animation with Toonboom Hamrony, and to help each student to create an industry-standard Toonboom work reel.

Within these 12 weeks, students may specialize in either Toonboom Harmony Rigging or Toonboom Harmony Animation. Jessie can help our students tailor their demo reels towards both areas of specialism.

Animation by Kate Crabtree

Course Outline

Week 0: Pre-course prep work

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: Animation basic exercises

Week 3: Animation with rig, simple (Rig provided)

Week 4: Animation with rig, walk cycle

Week 5: Animation with rig, acting

Week 6: Animating with drawing swaps; lipsync and expression

Week 7: Vectorizing and basic rigging

Week 8: Final reel ground work

Week 9: Final reel work and feedback. 1st pass

Week 10: Final reel work and feedback. 2nd pass

Week 11: Basic comping

Week 12: Final reel feedback and Polish

Reading List 

The key text for our animation students is The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. We have a number of copies in the Animation Library. 

Jessie Ilham's Demo Reel

Tutor Jessie Ilham is an experienced professional with skills in both rigging and animation in Toonboom Harmony. 

Jessie Ilham's Demo Reel from Jessie Ilham on Vimeo.

Jessie Ilham Online Portfolio

To see Jessie's official site, follow this link.

When and Where
The course starts on 29 June 2020 and lasts for 12 weeks at our Central London Campus at 190 High Holborn, WC1

Final Brief

The course builds up to a final industry brief, which includes a character performance shot and also a demo reel. To read more about the final industry brief, read this blog post.

Career opportunities

Animation by Ciara McLean

Our students go on to work in many areas of the industry including 3D animation for films, TV, games, and visual effects. After the classroom course is over our students have access to the classrooms and equipment at Escape Studios for a full year, so that our students can continue to refine and polish their skills. We take aftercare very seriously – since it can take time to put together a job-ready demo reel, we make sure our students get the time and practice that they need to refine their work to make them job-ready.

Success Stories
To see some of our Escape Studios animation success stories, follow this link. We're proud of our track record of helping our students break into industry, such as Escapee Chan Sagoo, who recently finished working as an animator on Lion King.

How to sign up
Follow this link to the official site.

Evening Class in Toonboom Harmony

• We also offer a part-time evening class in Toonboom Harmony, taught by veteran animator Plamen Ananiev. 
  

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our new BA/MArt starting in September 2020, follow this link. We train all our students with practical real-world skills, to give them the best possible chance of a career in industry. To see some of our animation success stories, follow this link.