Do you want to start sharing your ideas through simple but expressive animations without touching software like Adobe Aftereffects or Blender?

Well, same here. So, let me show you the easiest, laziest way to animate that I know of.

To animate like this, you don’t need a background in animation or drawing. I'll be showing you how you can screen-record your drawing process and edit it later to create a simple animated video.

This class is divided into two sections: drawing and editing.

1. Drawing

First, we'll loosen up our hands with the help of two exercises: one where we'll do some warm-up doodling and one where we'll create a bubble diagram explaining a process we know very well.

Following that, we'll create our class project. This will be an animation showing a pun or a joke you either heard or told a friend or loved one. 

We'll first record our screens while creating the characters in our animation and the speech bubbles above them.

2. Editing

After we finish drawing our animation, we'll move the screen-recorded video to our editing software and make some minor changes. 

We'll wrap the video up by adding some music and exporting the short animation. 

For your class project, upload a screenshot from your short video in the projects and resources section. You can also share screenshots from the warm-up exercises (actually, I'd like to see those :)

Why Learn to Animate?

My hope is that you’ll leave this class not just with a few drawing and editing tricks and also, the confidence to create simple animations that can be used as a powerful promotional or educational resource, to raise awareness about an important issue in your community or to help you make a strong impression in your school or work presentation. It helped me do those things.

In this era of quick information and virality, the video format is an especially potent medium for communication. So, knowing how to create even a simple animation video to share your idea or raise awareness about an important issue in your neighborhood would extend your reach and make it easier to communicate with a more diverse group of people. 

Since animation is a visually-rich and simple medium, it’d also help you cross linguistic and cultural barriers.

It sure has served me and the causes I care about in this way.

This class is for anyone who wants to acquire this communication skill without having to learn the ropes in more complex software like Aftereffects or Blender. You could be a beginner at drawing and editing or someone who has more experience in both skills but, wants to pick up a simple animation style.