Class Catalog

Class Details

Summer 2026:

TERM DATES: Jul 5, 2026 - Sep 19, 2026
LEVEL: Beginner
COURSE PREREQUISITES:Introduction to 3D Animation

Animating Characters

$1620

This course teaches the principles of animation applied to character motion and locomotion. Students are now ready to tackle full biped character animation in three animation assignments. Students learn how to maintain balance, understanding where the character's center of gravity is located, sculpting poses for strong silhouettes, shape reversals, how and why a character anticipates a move, motivated action, secondary action and reaction, caricatured motion, how to avoid twinning, appeal in asymmetry, and staging. In the assignments, the students are given more freedom to explore secondary actions.

Technical concepts and workflows like gimbal lock, rotation order, euler filter, constraints, breakdowns, avoiding counter-animation, and Tween Machine are covered so students will understand how to create clear actions while being expressive and creative with their character.

By using AnimSchool's simple segmented "block" characters, students focus on the specific positioning and angles of body parts to properly communicate a biped's pose, without getting lost in the ambiguity of fleshy characters.
See Program Tuition Information or Single Class.
1, 2 - Full biped character walk cycle.
3, 4, 5- Full biped character walk to stop assignment.
6-10 - Interacting with a heavy object.
11 - Finalizing and submitting assignments.
Critique Time * Class Time Instructor Notes
Thursday 9:30 PM - 11:00 PM Monday 9:30 PM - 11:00 PM
Christopher Dias
Monday 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Thursday 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Michael Ervall
Monday 11:00 PM - 12:30 AM Tuesday 11:00 PM - 12:30 AM
Aleksandar Kolev
Wednesday 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Tuesday 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Ayoub Moulakhnif
Monday 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM Wednesday 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Anand Somasundaran

ABOUT INSTRUCTORS

Christopher Dias

Canada Flag Canada

Chris has over 15 years of Animation experience and a graduate from Sheridan's 2006-
07 Digital Character Animation course, Canada. At Sheridan, He won the Dreamworks
Animation SKG Scholarship for best student character animation for his student project
that year. He later ended up working at DreamWorks-Technicolor, India as a Character
Animator on Mr.Peabody and Sherman and The Annie award winning TV
series, Dragon:Riders of Berk a spin-off of the Block Buster hit How to train your
Dragon. He has also worked at WETA Digital, New Zealand, as
a Character Animator on Alvin and the Chipmunks:The Road Chip, Disney's Steven
Spielberg directed 'Big Friendly Giant' and Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles 2 at ILM
Singapore. He is currently works as a Senior Animator at Axis Animation, Glasgow on
their upcoming projects.
His other credits include the Annie award nominated Halloween special 'Scared
Shrekless' and Christmas Special 'Merry Madagascar' with Madagascar
Characters, Madly Madagascar, Madagascar 3: Europe's most
wanted at DreamWorks-India, The Incredible Hulk and The Love Guru at SohoVFX,
Canada. Chris is a well rounded Animator, with experience in all formats of animation from
TV series to High bugdet Feature films, including VFX films. His passion for films and
Animation is contagious and He is only eager to share it.
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Michael Ervall

Brazil Flag Brazil

With over a decade of experience in character animation for TV series, commercials, and feature film, I’ve had the honor of contributing to a wide range of projects, including Disney's Elena of Avalor, multiple Funko commercials, and an undisclosed upcoming feature film. I’m dedicated to sharing my expertise with my future colleagues, helping you bring your stories to life through the art of animation!
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Aleksandar Kolev

Canada Flag Canada

Aleksandar is a Bulgarian animator currently working at DreamWorks Animation. With over 15 years of working in different areas of the entertainment industry such as Feature, TV, VFX, Adverts and Games Cinematics , he has animated on award winning projects like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Mitchells vs The Machines, Over the Moon, Paddington 2, Angry Birds 2, Hotel Transylvania 3, Spirit: Untamed, Addams Family 2, Charlie the Wonder Dog, Bad Guys 2, Ice Age 6 (still in production) and supervised projects such as Netflix's Sonic: Prime, Apple + WondLa. Aleksandar is a flexible animator with background in hand-drawn animation that utilizes a variety of workflows to suit the style and needs of the show he is animating on.
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Ayoub Moulakhnif

United Kingdom Flag United Kingdom

Ayoub Moulakhnif is an Animator at Jellyfish Pictures, previously Axis Studios, Agora, and Superseed Studios, working on Animated features for Netflix, VFX and Games. Some of his work include Scrooge a christmas carol, Cosmoball, Oddworld Soulstorm, and Brawl stars Ayoub is a versatile animator with styles ranging from abstract and cartoony to realistic animation, subtle acting and heavy body mechanic animation.
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Anand Somasundaran

Canada Flag Canada

Anand fell in love with animation because it was a medium that combined two of his favorite things; drawing and film-making. He has been working as an animator since 2009 and has worked at many feature film studios such and Rhythm and Hues, Industrial Light and Magic and Sony Imageworks. He has worked on films ranging from hyper realistic VFX films such as the Academy award winning Life of Pi, DeadPool vs Wolverine to cartoony films like Cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2, Hotel Transylvania 2 and Storks. After working in films for many years he is currently really enjoying his time in video games as a gameplay animator. He worked at Relic Entertainment on Age of Empires 4 as a Senior Gameplay Animator and was the Lead Animator for the Age of Empires expansion title Sultans Ascend. He is currently working as an Expert Gameplay Animator on an unannounced title at 2K Sports. Anand has been a teacher at Animschool since 2017, mostly helping students in foundational classes such as Animating Characters. His teaching method involves lectures combined with a lot of Maya Demos focusing on how to block a shot in 'Stepped tangents' and how to successfully transition from 'Stepped to Spline ' with emphasis on good clean workflow.
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