Autumn Class Starts September 7

Animation by Joris Van Laar

Our September classroom is now taking applications, and the new autumn class begins on Monday 7th September.

It's not too late to book a place; all you need to do to get started is head over to our main site and fill in a brief form.

If you want to learn 3D animation to a professional level - your journey starts here.

Getting started

The book we recommend for studying animation

Below is a brief list of stuff to get you under way. You don't have to do all of it, but tick off a few of the things on this list and you will be a making a great start on your animation career. The animation industry in the UK is booming - there's never been a better time to learn the art and craft of character and creature animation.

First, here is a short reading list to get you started. We've narrowed it down to just one key book that we recommend for all our students.

The Animator's Survival Kit.
Any serious student of animation should buy a copy of The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams.  It is now the standard textbook for animators and easily the most comprehensive book available for learning animation.

Download your free copy of Maya
OK - so you've bought a book or two - what else? The next thing to do is get yourself a free copy of Autodesk Maya.  Maya is the main software we animate with, nowadays it's the industry standard. You can find a free educational license here.

Workstation
You will also need a decent laptop or workstation capable of running Maya. To see our guide to buying a suitable laptop, read this blog post.

Start watching our free videos
Once you have done that, take a look at the week 1 videos at the Animation Apprentice website. The week 1 videos are all free and this gives you a general introduction to animation, helping you to get familiar with the language of the medium.

Welcome to Animation Apprentice!
If you do some or all the things on this list - you will have a great head start! I look forward to meeting you. Remember that here at Animation Apprentice I personally tutor all my students. I have over 30 years experience in the animation industry, from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" to "Harry Potter", and over 25 years experience of teaching animation.

And I'm still learning.

----Alex


To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our next classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.