How to Make an Anime Masterclass - Part 1

How to Make an Anime Masterclass: Part 1 focuses on the essential pre-production stages of creating an anime scene from the ground up. In this course, we’ll walk through the beginning of a complete solo animation pipeline—starting from generating your idea, developing your concept, planning your scene, designing your characters, and finally building clear storyboards and animatics.

By the end of Part 1, you’ll have a fully planned and visualized sequence that sets the foundation for animation. This is the stage where you define your story beats, camera work, pacing, acting, and overall direction—so when it’s time to animate, you’ll know exactly what you’re creating. You’ll learn how to think like a solo animator, build an efficient workflow, and convert your ideas into a structured plan you can follow. Whether you want to make fan animations, original shorts, or start an animation-focused channel, this course gives you the tools to properly prepare and develop a scene before jumping into the animation process.

This is a project-based course, so creating your own mini animation project as you follow along is highly recommended. By the end of Part 1, you’ll have a polished animatic ready for the full animation stages in Part 2.

AS A BONUS FOR PURCHASING THIS COURSE YOU WILL ALSO GET ACCESS FOR ALL OF MY 2025 ANIMATION CHEAT SHEETS, RESOURCES AND VIDEO NOTES FOR FREE

PART 1: Course Breakdown (2hr 3min of Tutorials + 3hr 34 min of additional Demos)

00-Course Overview

01-Animation Pipeline
-Japanese Animation Pipeline
-My Solo Animation Pipeline

02-Brainstorming Ideas and Gathering References
-types of animation formats
-gathering references
-solidifying your idea with references
-how to formulate a simple story
-demo

03-Character Drawing and Design
-Character Drawing Key Points
-Basics of Character Design
-Character Design Process
-How to Draw Existing Chracters Effectively

04-Storyboarding and Animatics
-Tools used in Storyboarding
-Sequence, Scenes and Cuts
-Types of Shots
-Camera Movement
-Basic Composition Techniques
-Thumbnailing
-Storyboarding
-Animatics

BONUS: Clip Studio Paint Tutorial and the 12 Animation Principles Cheat Sheet (44 min)